As of: March 12, 2024, 9:34 p.m
By: Matthias Schneider
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An electricity pylon in a field: Christian Hartel, head of Wacker Chemie, would like to see more speed in the expansion of renewable energies.
© Sven Kaeuler / dpa
There is a lot of debate about energy policy in Germany and Europe.
Christian Hartel, Managing Director of Wacker Chemie, explains in an interview why the site's survival depends on green electricity.
Burghausen - The AfD has achieved high approval ratings, among other things, with loud criticism of the energy transition and is calling for a renaissance of fossil fuels.
This is exactly the wrong way to lead Germany out of the crisis, say over 50 well-known companies who, together with the Climate Economy Foundation, have written an incendiary letter to politicians.
One is Bavaria's largest electricity consumer: Wacker Chemie.
In an interview, managing director Christian Hartel explains why the site's survival depends on green electricity.
Mr. Hartel, you co-signed the fire letter for the energy transition.
Why?
For us as an industrial company, it is extremely important to be in a country where the general conditions are right and we can safely develop our business.
It's about all the aspects that are needed to do business successfully: This includes skilled workers - including from abroad - and affordable, green energy.
You yourself have plants in the USA and China, where electricity costs between two and five cents per kilowatt hour, and significantly more in Germany.
Can we keep up with this in the future?
I am absolutely confident about that.
Renewable energy, particularly photovoltaics, is by far the cheapest energy on the planet.
Carbon-based energy is more expensive, even if you don't take into account the damage caused by CO₂.
In the 2030s we will see that this works.
China has understood the economic importance of renewables and installed over 200 gigawatts of solar capacity last year.
For comparison: In Germany there were only 14 gigawatts in the record year of 2023.
And in the USA?
Driven partly by the Inflation Reduction Act, but also by business decisions, huge solar and wind farms are being built in the USA, where local people earn money.
We also feel this in the demand for our polysilicon: Last year, 450 gigawatts of solar power were installed worldwide, this year there will be 500.
In the future, expensive hydrogen power plants will step in during phases without sun and wind.
Ultimately, won't electricity become more expensive?
You raise an important point.
As a chemical process industry, we have so far been geared towards working as consistently and at high capacity as possible.
Due to the increasing share of renewables, we will see more fluctuations, including in pricing.
We are working hard to expand our capacities more flexibly in order to make greater use of this.
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However, your polysilicon production in particular requires constant electricity.
That's true, but if there are special price peaks, we can also partially reduce the load and then produce more when the electricity is cheap again.
When it comes to this topic, you shouldn't focus so much on individual companies, but rather you have to look at the entire system.
That means?
Electric cars, for example, will play a very important role in the next five to ten years.
They will absorb electricity when it is cheap and release it when it is expensive.
This will smooth out the peaks and valleys on the electricity market to some extent.
This factor is underestimated.
Christian Hartel runs Bavaria's largest chemical company.
He wants green electricity for the strategically important semiconductor raw material polysilicon.
© PHOTO: OLIVER BODMER
Nevertheless, critics warn of the dark doldrums.
The critics of the energy transition come primarily from the old energy world, where everything had to be regulated centrally at a power plant and fluctuations could not be imagined.
But you can deal with that.
Artificial intelligence will also help with this.
So far, hardly anyone has flexible electricity tariffs or the necessary networked electricity meters.
Is society ready yet?
The savings potential has actually not yet fully reached the population.
If I charge my electric car at the right time, it's very cheap; many intelligent electricity meters even do this automatically.
You have to make people the beneficiaries of the energy transition.
This also applies to the discussion about wind turbines.
There are very successful examples of citizen participation.
Politicians could also do more to convince people: It is not only good for the climate, but also for jobs and their own wallets.
Green electricity can compete with fossil electricity.
However, for process heat in industry it is often cheaper to simply burn coal.
Is electricity really the all-purpose solution?
In the end: Yes, green electricity.
I expect that there will also be global prices for CO₂ emissions in the next decade.
Then it pays off if I already have an electrified process.
And green, cheap energy will be a competitive advantage given global CO₂ pricing.
Do you expect CO₂ prices in China too?
I could imagine that.
At the same time, renewable electricity is becoming so much cheaper that the question of whether coal is more profitable no longer arises.
And anyone who recognizes this in politics will secure the competitive advantage of tomorrow.
In Texas today you can get green electricity for four cents - without subsidies, simply because it's worth it.
Our long-standing demand for an industrial electricity price is practically a reality there.
Because there is more cheap wind power in the north than in the south, the EU could split Germany into several price zones.
Wouldn’t that make sense for industrial policy?
There is only one reason why we are having this discussion at all: because the expansion of the power lines was not carried out with the necessary political speed.
Some of the industrial locations in Bavaria have grown over 100 years.
You can't just transplant them.
For years, efforts to build the necessary lines to the north were missed.
This will now be made up for.
Creating price zones now would be wrong for two reasons: Industry in the south would have higher electricity prices, which would be fatal for competitiveness.
At the same time, the business model would no longer be worthwhile for the people who have invested in wind turbines in northern Germany; they would have fewer buyers and lower prices.
Well-known experts also say that the energy transition cannot succeed without nuclear power.
I'm not a fan of new nuclear power plants for one main reason: I think the electricity they generate is too expensive.
In the few new projects - for example in Finland and England - you will never get an electricity price of six to seven cents, like we have in Germany today, but rather twice as much.
However, the decision to switch off existing, depreciated reactors certainly didn't help us.
The Burghausen location is not an option for you.
But would you invest in new capacity?
We are currently expanding our etching line for semiconductor polysilicon - but this is not a very energy-intensive process.
In the current situation it is difficult to think about new capacities for energy-intensive processes.
The planning security that a bridge electricity price would have provided is also missing.
With the bridge electricity price there would have been new investments in energy-intensive production?
We always have plans in the drawer to expand our production, and this also includes polysilicon production in Bavaria.
However, the basic requirement is competitive, predictable energy prices.