FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Oil and gas firms, big industrial players and pension funds will increase investment in renewable energy thanks to falling costs and a shorter payback time than for nuclear, Swiss private bank Sarasin said on Monday.

“The sector will become the target of progressive oil and gas companies and utilities and of blue chip firms in conventional industries,” the bank’s sustainability research analyst, Matthias Fawer, said at a press briefing in Frankfurt.

“Insurers such as Allianz and Munich Re are also looking to new investment possibilities like wind parks and solar plants in order to boost their profits,” he added.

Renewable energies over the last 10 years were the fastest growing energy industry segments, the bank’s research showed.

Investment worldwide in the sector rose 25 percent year-on-year in 2010 alone to $200 billion, it said.

Sarasin administers renewable funds worth 1 billion euros for private and institutional investors out of 100 billion euros ($138.7 billion) in total assets it manages in funds.

Investors are tapping into production cost savings as unit costs of wind and solar installations fall rapidly, while nuclear power plants become more costly due to safety requirements, Fawer said.

FRANKFURT, Oct 14 (Reuters) – Subsidies levied on German consumers to support renewable power are to rise by 1.8 percent next year and an increase in solar power capacity will be far slower than in 2010 and 2011, a statement from transmission grid firms said on Friday.

The data showed Germany is beginning to rein in an exponential rise in renewable power driven by generous subsidies which have become increasingly burdensome for users.

The four leading high voltage network operators (TSOs) cited calculations by independent researchers who they said had arrived at a modest forecast for the anticipated renewable power charge (EEG tariff) that is shared by all consumers.

Under German law, green power from sources like wind and solar must be fed into the electricity grid and paid above-market rates in a system partly administered by the TSOs.

“Consumers in 2012 will contribute to promoting renewable energies in 2012 by paying 3.592 euro cents ($ 0.492) per kilowatt hour (kWh),” the statement said.

“This is just little more than 3.530 cents/kWh paid this year.”

The statement also said that photovoltaic power capacity is due to rise to 28.3 gigawatt (GW) in 2012, compared with 23.8 GW expected by the end of 2011 and 17.3 GW recorded at the end of 2011, according to the research.

FRANKFURT/PARIS (Reuters) – German and French spot electricity prices are vulnerable to spikes this winter as high seasonal demand combines with short supply after Germany axed a big chunk of its nuclear capacity.

Such spikes would add to the troubles of households and companies in an already slowing economy.

Analysts and traders do not expect power blackouts because grid managers are trained to instruct industrial plants in local areas to slow or stop production to balance the grid and prevent a breakdown.

But the task presents technical challenges, and the outcome can hinge on weather patterns.

“If France needed imports and Germany was out of the picture, it would get tight,” said Konstantin Lenz of Lenz Energy in Berlin. “The mere forecast of cold weather could make the European market nervous and drive prices higher.”

The two countries account for two-thirds of western Europe’s power consumption in a converging wholesale market, which has been tight since Germany this summer permanently closed eight old reactors, or 40 percent of its atomic capacity.

Germany has turned into a net importer since March, when it closed the plants in reaction to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

FRANKFURT, Sept 30 (Reuters) – Germany’s Bayerngas intends to join the Nabucco gas pipeline consortium as a seventh member, boosting the project’s competitiveness in a bid to transport gas from the Caspian region to Europe, the group said on Friday.

“Nabucco Gas Pipeline International welcomes Bayerngas’ intent on becoming one of the Nabucco shareholders,” said the consortium in a statement on Friday.

“Negotiations with the six current shareholders will begin immediately to determine the future share split within the consortium,” it added.

The bid by Bayerngas, a gas transport and distribution company based in Bavarian state capital Munich, will be discussed at a meeting between the Austrian Economy Minister and his counterpart in Bavaria later on Friday, the group said.

“We wholeheartedly welcome the Bavarian move … Germany’s gas demand will rise not least because of its nuclear energy exit decision and due to falling gas production in Europe,” Gerhard Roiss, chief executive of Austrian energy company OMV , said in a statement.

A spokesman for Bayerngas said the talks would be completed in 2012 at the latest.

Nabucco, which is backed by OMV, Germany’s RWE , Hungary’s MOL , Turkey’s Botas, BEH of Bulgaria and Romania’s Transgaz , aims to transport up to 31 billion cubic metres a year by 2017.

FRANKFURT, Sept 21 (Reuters) – German gas trading volumes are on track to see more growth this year but at a lower rate after a rapid expansion in recent years triggered by liberalisation, a pan-European study by British consultancy Prospex said in a report on Wednesday.

Germany, considered a national market, now has the third largest trading volume in Europe with 1,700 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2010, a 78 percent rise over 2009, having doubled in each of the previous three years leading up to that, the report said.

“As for 2011, the spectacular growth…has definitely slowed, at least as far as physical trading is concerned,” said Nigel Harris, one of the authors of the report.

“But with relative regulatory stability in German trading and transport arrangements, we expect to see continued growth in (Net Connect Germany zone) NCG trading volumes through 2011-12.”

Germany has been whittling down the number of separate trading regions — of which it had hundreds up to a few years ago — and is set to end up with just two from Oct. 1, 2011.

The largest is NCG, mainly fed by Open Grid Europe, formerly an E.ON (EONGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) group transport arm, which stretches across e south-west Germany and accounted for 900 TWh of the 2010 total.

From October, there will only be NCG and Gaspool, in the north-east of the country, replacing and surpassing the former practice of different qualities of gas traded by incumbents with vested interests at different venues.

MUNICH, Sept 13 (Reuters) – German utility RWE hopes to conclude a planned 2.5 billion euro ($3.4 billion) capital increase and sale of treasury shares this year, board member Leonhard Birnbaum told reporters in Munich on Tuesday.

“We would like it to be this year,” Birnbaum said.

Debt-laden RWE said in August it needed to raise fresh capital, sell some assets and raise efficiency amid turmoil in Germany’s energy industry.

Germany’s decision to exit from nuclear power forced its utility sector to restructure quickly, while gas market developments caused towering trading losses.

Birnbaum said lawsuits surrounding Germany’s hasty nuclear exit were expected to keep RWE lawyers busy for three to five years.

The dispute encompasses a tax on nuclear fuel rods RWE says should not be levied on closed units, damages from a forced exit from a number of power stations and a constitutional court move to decide if the nuclear exit interfered with property rights.

In a planned asset disposal plan, RWE, fresh from selling three quarters of its high voltage power grid Amprion for 1.3 billion euros, has said it will put its regional subsidiaries Suewag of Frankfurt, Kevag of Koblenz and VSE of Saarbruecken on the block.

FRANKFURT, Aug 15 (Reuters) – Six people accused of evading more than 200 million euros ($282 million) in tax in the European carbon market face possible prison terms of up to nine years, the judge told the opening of their trial at a Frankfurt district court on Monday.

The six men, aged 27 to 65, are accused of having conspired to evade value-added tax (VAT) from September 2009 to April 2010. The prosecutors said the accused took advantage of tax rules in Germany which were valid until June of last year.

Judge Martin Bach said the defendants could receive prison sentences of between three and nine years, with the duration in some instances potentially shortened through cooperation provided by defendants .

Defence lawyers criticised the judge, noting he had called the case “opaque” in preliminary meetings and prematurely talked about the scope of potential sentences while the defendants were still being interviewed about possible cooperation with authorities.

Claude Bauduin, Robert Peitzmeyer and his son Bjoern Peitzmeyer, Wayne Stewart Brown, Irfan Musa Patel and Fraz Mir – who are from Germany, France and Britain — were not asked to make a plea at this stage.

In an EU-wide investigation, Germany has carried out the biggest swoop on suspects, with prosecutors identifying around 170 suspects in carbon fraud.

A spokesman for the court said the cases of the six standing trial on Monday were seen as most pressing as they had been remanded in custody.

LONDON/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Germany’s leading utilities, badly positioned in the upstream gas market and tied into long-term gas deals linked to crude, must pin hopes for better results on oil prices coming down.

Executives at E.ON and RWE reported falls in half-year profits of 45 percent and 40 percent respectively this week.

“Their planning for this year has been totally disrupted as there have been problems with power supply due to the nuclear volume losses that risk managers could not foresee,” said Madjid Kuebler of Team Consult, a Berlin energy consultancy.

Yet the companies’ woes go beyond the nuclear exit.

Both firms are being hit by a gas price squeeze as high global oil prices – to which long-term gas contracts (LTC) are index linked – clash with weak spot gas prices in central Europe, where customers reference prices to local hubs at 20 to 30 percent discounts.

E.ON has said that this could lead to a gas trading loss of around 1 billion euros this year.

With Gazprom, the main supplier, insisting on keeping the long-term deals in place, the case is now being dealt with by arbitration courts for settlement.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – RWE (RWEG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Russia’s Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) are both willing to develop further their exclusive talks, begun last month, on power station ventures and gas prices, the German utility said on Tuesday.

“There is a match of interests. We want to conclude a new, modernized gas supply treaty with our biggest supplier … while Gazprom for its part wants to increase its value creation here,” Chief Executive Juergen Grossmann said in a press call.

“If we work hard at, it we can soon reach a result that will be interesting for both sides,” he added.

The utility and the Russian gas monopoly signed a memorandum of understanding in July to hold three months of exclusive talks to explore energy projects that could lead to a gas and coal power joint venture in Germany, Britain and the Benelux countries.

Germany’s decision to exit nuclear power has prompted its largest utilities to look to Russia for investment and as a source of natural gas for low-carbon power production.

Because of Germany’s decision, RWE said its core net profit plunged 40 percent in the first six months of the year.

Grossmann said suitable assets in Germany, Britain and the Benelux countries were being selected for the potential venture. RWE would like any deal to comprise plants fired by hard coal and brown coal as well as the gas-fired that would be a natural fit for the Russian company.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – RWE’s (RWEG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) first-half core net profit fell 40 percent, hit by a government decision to phase out nuclear power and unprofitable gas sales, highlighting the problems faced by the German utility’s new CEO-designate.

Germany’s largest power producer said on Tuesday first-half profit took a 900 million euro ($845 million) hit from provisions to decommission nuclear power plants, the write-off of nuclear fuel rods and a nuclear fuel tax.

RWE, which prepared for a strategy revamp on Monday when naming Dutch accountant Peter Terium as chief executive from next year, said on Tuesday he would take charge of political talks immediately.

Germany shut eight nuclear power plants following Japan’s nuclear disaster. The government also decided to phase out nuclear power completely by 2022, overturning legislation that had extended the lifespan of 17 plants.

RWE, whose incumbent CEO Juergen Grossmann has the moniker “nuclear Rambo” in Berlin, is especially vulnerable to the nuclear exit because it relies heavily on nuclear and coal-fired power generation and the company would need to invest heavily to bolster its gas and renewable energy business.

Also, investments RWE made in recent years have laden its balance sheet with about 30 billion euros debt, and long-term contracts with suppliers such as Russian monopoly Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) squeeze margins in the gas business.

RWE, which has been in talks to secure better conditions from suppliers, said it expected burdens to increase over the next year since new terms would not take effect until 2012/13.