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European Tribune - Enron's disciples in Germany?
From what I found, the Federal Grid Agency still didn't announce an explanation for this behaviour. IWR, however, pointed to two relevant facts: Following last year's re-organisation of the market, the bulk of the costs of electricity from cold reserve plants counts as grid operating cost, and that cost is billed to private consumers (who aren't exempted like large companies) as transmission tariff. At the time, Germany was actually exporting electricity to Italy via Austria. These circumstances make a gaming of the system possible. The theory goes like this: if the replacement of the power lost by the Gundremmingen shutdown would count as part of the Italy exports, then the costs of electricity from cold reserve plants activated in Germany could not be transferred to (domestic) consumers, and German power companies would be left to pay. So starting up a plant in Austria allows for shifting costs to consumers in Germany.
From what I found, the Federal Grid Agency still didn't announce an explanation for this behaviour. IWR, however, pointed to two relevant facts:
Is the grid-operator always responsible for costs for starting up plants in cold reserve? If so, why would German power companies pay if it was started in Germany, would they not be paid by the grid-operator? A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
Ad 1: If electricity goes from Germany to a foreign power company, then German private consumers cannot be billed for the use of the grid. Instead the foreign power company will pay the contract price which was originally set for cheaper baseload power, while it will actually cost more, coming from an expensive peaker plant. Someone will have to foot that bill (probably TenneT, but I'm not sure, see below).
Ad 2: From what I understand, the relationship of grid operators and power plant operators in Germany is still rather messy. The EU forced a separation only recently (TenneT bought E.ON's part of the grid). However, Gundremmingen is on the part of the grid operated by TransnetBW, the one of the four still fully owned by the power plant operator parent company (EnBW), so TenneT apparently comes into the picture as direct neighbour and provider of transit. So I'm not sure who pays whom in this setup. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
An additional interesting tidbit was that the Federal Grid Agency called for the regulation of exports, to avoid the selling of more power than available. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I don't fully get it either...
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