Worlee-Chemie GmbH, a family-owned company that has produced resins in the city of Hamburg for almost a century, is trying to escape the spiraling cost of Germany’s shift to renewable energy. A 47% increase on January 1 in the fees grid operators set to fund wind and solar investments is driving the maker of paint ingredients to Turkey, where next month it will start making a new type of hardening agent at a factory near Istanbul. The levy will cost Worlee 465,000 euros this year, the equivalent of 10 full-time salaries, or one-third of the company’s tax bill. The price of weaning the country off nuclear energy by 2022 is crushing the so-called Mittelstand, the three million small and medium-sized businesses like Worlee that account for about half of gross domestic product…If costs climb even more, Worlee may consider uprooting existing German production sites.

(Dr. Benny Peiser)