SALZBURG, Austria (Reuters) – Germany’s emerging new energy future without nuclear has awoken interest from utility companies to build new gas-fired power stations, gas supplier Wingas said on Wednesday.

“We are currently in talks with between five and 10 parties which are interested in building gas-to-power plants about possible long-term gas supplies,” Wingas chairman Gerhard Koenig told Reuters in an interview.

SALZBURG, Austria, May 18 (Reuters) – Wingas, a German joint
venture between BASF (BASFn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) and Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research), warned
2011 sales volumes would not be as high as last year’s, when new
customers and the coldest winter since 1969 fuelled demand.

German annual sales growth of 9 percent outdid overall 2010
sales growth by 5 percent and the German gas market as a whole,
where sales increased 4 percent, said Wingas chairman Gerhard
Koenig at a press conference on Wednesday.

FRANKFURT, May 10 (Reuters) – Trading volumes in most
European power markets are set to grow again this year after an
increase of 9 percent across the region in 2010, a report by
research company Prospex said.

Europe’s economic recovery and Germany’s increasingly
anti-nuclear policy have driven prices higher in the region and
forced traders to adjust their positions in Europe’s biggest
single market, Prospex said.

FRANKFURT/LONDON (Reuters) – Germany will be more reliant on the fickle weather for electricity in May and the fourth quarter as reduced nuclear supply cuts capacity and renewable energy may struggle to fill the gap.

Analysts said they see upwards pressure on power prices as a result.

After Japan’s nuclear crisis in March, Germany closed half of its nuclear capacity temporarily and rowed back on longer life cycles for all nuclear plants.

FRANKFURT, April 1 (Reuters) – RWE (RWEG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) emerged the
only German utility spoiling for a legal fight against the
government’s move to shut down the nation’s oldest nuclear power
plants.

RWE, the country’s largest power producer, said on Friday it
had filed a legal complaint against the German state of Hesse,
which ordered a 3-month shutdown of RWE’s Biblis nuclear plant
following the federal government’s about face in nuclear policy.

KASSEL, Germany (Reuters) – Germany’s change of heart on nuclear energy will likely produce power capacity shortfalls that could be filled by natural gas, a board member of supplier Wintershall said on Thursday.

“A number of gas-fired power station projects were put on ice when the government lengthened nuclear life cycles last autumn,” said Gerhard Koenig, in charge of gas trading at the BASF unit that spans oil and gas production through to sales.

FRANKFURT/LONDON, March 29 (Reuters) – The elections in the
German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg last Sunday will likely lead
to its first state government to be led by the anti-nuclear
Green Party which scored votes on Japan’s nuclear crisis.

With an annual gross domestic product (GDP) of 344 billion
euros ($483 billion) — comparable to that of Switzerland –
Baden-Wuerttemberg is a major German economic centre.

BERLIN, March 28 (Reuters) – The political backlash against
nuclear power in Germany means power generation will rely more
on coal-fired plants, Europe’s Energy Commissioner said on
Monday.

“There will be more coal power … with consequences for CO2
emissions,” Guenther Oettinger, a former premier of
Baden-Wuerttemberg state where Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
conservatives lost power on Sunday, told Reuters in Berlin.

FRANKFURT, March 17 (Reuters) – Germany’s move to take its
oldest nuclear reactors off line in response to the crisis in
Japan poses problems for high-voltage transmission grids,
leading operators said on Thursday.

The move, involving a step-by-step withdrawal of a few
thousand megawatts (MW) for at least three months, also raised
questions over longer-term planning for the networks, should
policymakers decide on more permanent and sharper cuts to
nuclear capacity, the operators said.

BERLIN/FRANKFURT, March 16 (Reuters) – Support for Germany’s
anti-nuclear Greens has grown before crucial state elections,
while Chancellor Angela Merkel faced criticism from the right on
Wednesday for shutting down seven reactors after Japan’s crisis.

Merkel finds herself in a squeeze, with the opposition
demanding a new law to close the seven power stations for good
and the pro-business right insisting she reopen them as soon as
a three-month moratorium expires, if they pass safety tests.