New German economy minister wants more gas-fired power plants

Germany's new Economy Minister Katherina Reiche on Friday called for the rapid construction of new gas-fired power plants in the country to support the country's energy supply when renewable sources are unavailable.

"We need flexible gas-fired power plants that can supply electricity when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. And we need them quickly," Reiche said at the Ludwig Erhard Summit at the Bavarian lake resort Tegernsee.

She said it was important to "quickly move to tender at least 20 gigawatts of gas-fired power plants to maintain energy security."

Reiche, from Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative Christian Democratic Union, pointed to the recent power outage on the Iberian Peninsula, saying that had demonstrated how important such gas-fired power plants are.

To make this feasible in terms of costs, she said, "long-term gas supply contracts" and a reality check of the energy transition are needed.

She added that it must be clarified whether the expansion in recent years has been ideal "or whether we have overlooked the system risks and system costs in the expansion of renewable energies."

While she acknowledged that "the expansion of renewable energies has advanced us towards the goal of climate neutrality," she noted the costs, including those for grid expansion, grid bottlenecks, and for shutting down coal and gas-fired power plants.

"This will be one of my first measures. We need a kind of monitoring and an honest assessment of the state of the energy transition," she said.