Enlarge image
Krümmel nuclear power plant
Photo: Ohde / Bildagentur-Online / ddp media
The federal government pays Vattenfall and RWE remarkably high compensation for the nuclear phase-out.
The two energy groups are to receive a total of almost 2.3 billion euros for so-called residual amounts of electricity that they can no longer generate in their nuclear power plants as planned.
The federal government plans to pay 33.22 euros for each unused megawatt hour.
It was only in 2019 that Vattenfall sold residual electricity to E.on for just 13.92 euros per megawatt hour - that is, for not even half the amount that the government estimates.
The energy economist Wolfgang Irrek from the Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences considers the planned compensation to be too high.
According to his calculations, a maximum of 24.47 euros per megawatt hour is sufficient to compensate the corporations for lost income.
Perhaps significantly less.
The Greens accuse the government of having made a deal with Vattenfall.
Until recently, the group had demanded more than six billion euros from the federal government in another process.
After the announcement of the residual electricity compensation, the proceedings before an arbitration tribunal in Washington were stopped.
The corporation and the government deny any connection between the two events.
As the federal government has calculated
The Ministry of the Environment writes that the calculation for the compensation is based on an average electricity price of just under 43 euros per megawatt hour.
The basis is market data and forecasts for the years 2019 to 2022. A hypothetical profit after taxes plus interest has been calculated from the assumed electricity price.
Vattenfall explains that the sales price of 13.92 euros is not a suitable comparison value.
At the time, the remaining electricity had to be sold below its value.
If the business with E.on had failed, the legal situation at the time would have meant that the company would have lost its entitlement to state subsidies.
E.on took advantage of this to push the price down.
Vattenfall believes Irrek's calculations are wrong.
Among other things, they did not take into account the fact that interest was also incurred on the lost profits, writes the group.
How exactly the compensation of 33.22 euros per megawatt hour comes about does not yet explain any of this.
Even if you take into account all the arguments of the group and the federal government, the compensation still appears high.
Compensation for quantities of electricity sold
According to the current regulation, RWE is now receiving a good 860 million euros for electricity that should have been produced in its long-shutdown Mülheim-Kärlich nuclear power plant.
Vattenfall receives more than 1.4 billion euros for lost profits from its Brunsbüttel and Krümmel nuclear power plants.
Around 250 million euros of the Vattenfall compensation accrue for the residual electricity volumes sold to E.on.
Because even with these, the federal government reimburses the difference between the sales price of 13.92 euros and the state-guaranteed compensation of 33.22 euros.
The Ministry of the Environment argues that this will even save the state money.
If E.on hadn't bought the remaining electricity, Vattenfall would have had to pay the full 33.22 euros in compensation.
That would have been another 181 million euros more expensive.
The Greens, however, suspect that the federal government is paying “hundreds of millions of euros too much”.
The government must "reveal what the billions are for," demand the MPs Sven-Christian Kindler and Sylvia Kotting-Uhl.
