Reuters: Germany’s switch to renewable energy is bound to fail with consumer prices at a 15-year high while wholesale prices are languishing, the chief executive of Austrian energy group Verbund said. Germany’s market, due to its retreat from nuclear power after Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster, was ‘about to collapse’, Wolfgang Anzengruber said, citing a lack of necessary investment that is compounding a broken pricing model.—Eon, Germany’s biggest utility by revenues, is considering the closure of one of Europe’s most modern gas-fired power stations as ructions on the European electricity market forced it to slash its profit forecast for the current year by almost one-third. Eon is planning to shut down of its Irsching plant in Bavaria in March and other plants could follow.

(Dr. Benny Peiser)