A senior boss at German power company Siemens today conceded that his home country’s Energiewende – or energy transition – from nuclear to renewables had been a “disaster” and was “not thought through”. Balling was speaking at a renewables conference at POWER-GEN Middle East in Qatar. “It was a very public decision and it was not thought through,” he said. He explained that since the decision in 2011 in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, the country had suffered several energy challenges, many caused by the inability of the grid to cope with power from wind farms. He said in 2009 there were 285 forced shutdowns of wind turbines – by the end of 2011 this had rocketed to more than 1000.

(Dr. Benny Peiser)