Bloomberg : Nuclear Exit May Boost Power Prices 30%

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The permanent halt of eight reactors and the closure of the
remaining plants by 2018 could boost wholesale power prices to
70 euros ($102) a megawatt-hour that year, according to a study
commissioned by the BDI and published April 24 on its website.
     Germany, Europe’s biggest economy and largest energy user,
plans to exit nuclear power after explosions at Japanese
reactors stoked safety concerns. Higher prices could threaten
chemical- and metal producers while utilities lose plants that
can be more profitable than fossil-fuel-fired units, RWE AG, the
country’s second-largest energy supplier, said last week.
     The exit would generate additional costs of 33 billion
euros by 2020, of which industrial and commercial energy users
will pay 24 billion euros, as utilities employ more expensive
power generation and demand for carbon-dioxide emission permits
rises, the BDI said. The figure would rise to 51 billion euros
if subsidies for developing renewable energy and the German
power grid are included, the lobby group said on its website.
     German Chancellor Angela Merkel said April 15 that she will
put plans to boost renewable energy output, build power grids
and phase out nuclear electricity to Cabinet in June. She hasn’t
specified a date for the exit.
     The study assumes that 50 percent of the output shortfall
from Germany’s reactors will be plugged in the “short-term” by
imports and the remainder by coal- and natural-gas-fired
generators. That would raise the energy industry’s CO2 emissions
to 282 million metric tons in 2018, 28 percent more than the
German government had planned, the BDI said.
     The study was conducted by r2b energy consulting GmbH, a
Cologne, Germany-based company that provides advice to the
energy industry, energy users and political institutions,
according to its website.