FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German power market experts on Monday said they are concerned about the lack of a longer-term power buffer as some 8,800 megawatts (MW) of nuclear capacity look set to stay shut for good.

The ruling coalition announced plans for Germany to exit nuclear power by 2022 in a significant reversal of policy in light of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear crisis.

Eight suspended reactors will not return to the market in mid-June after seven were shut in response to Japan’s nuclear crisis at Fukushima, and one was already suspended.

They represent 41 percent of Germany’s nuclear capacity which supplied 23 percent of the country’s electricity in 2010.

“The green logic is that everything can be done with wind or solar power,” said Konstantin Lenz of Lenz Energy in Berlin.

“But public opinion would turn quite dramatically if there was a blackout in the winter in the south of Germany. Without wanting to be alarmist, lack of wind and overcast conditions could contribute to that.”

Lenz echoes a line of argument which has become increasingly unpopular as voter majorities shifted against nuclear and politicians adopted an unprecedented and singular approach to go without a major energy source in the middle of Europe.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Investment Bank (EIB) will support Germany’s move toward more green power with billions of euros in coming years, focusing on offshore wind and transport grids, an executive of the bank said on Friday.

Roughly 1.1 billion euros ($1.6 billion) of an overall 7 billion euro credit volume extended to Germany last year were devoted to energy, and that figure is due to rise by 2020, Vice President Matthias Kollatz-Ahnen told Reuters at an energy conference.

“We are committed to contributing to Germany’s planned transition toward more renewable energy usage,” he said.

“From next year onwards, there will be an acceleration of investments in transmission networks.”

Overall, the EIB lent 72 billion euro to European Union countries in 2010, of which 18.1 billion were earmarked for energy.

The EIB has already signed loan agreements for two German offshore wind parks this year and is planning two more, Kollatz-Ahnen said.

He said substantial investment were needed to build more renewable energy capacity in Germany and connect this with other European countries, due to its leading economic role but also due to the fact that it shares borders with nine countries.

SALZBURG, Austria, May 19 (Reuters) – Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) on Thursday criticised European gas importers for backing spot prices as a better benchmark for supplies rather than the long term price deals to which they have committed with Russia.

Gazprom’s European customers have been stung by high contractual prices in long-term deals, while weak demand and oversupply curbed prices at spot gas trading hubs in Europe.

High oil prices and resurgent demand after the financial crisis meant that spot prices were heading higher, Gazprom deputy chief executive Alexander Medvedev told reporters.

“There is no reason to create the wrong illusion that you can get spot gas at any time. It was a mistake by our customers,” Medvedev said.

“It is their role to explain this so that their customers do not get the wrong signal,” he said on the margins of a gas storage conference.

Gazprom delivers to companies such as E.ON Ruhrgas (EONGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research); RWE (RWEG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) or GDF (GSZ.PA: Quote, Profile, Research), which use their transport networks and marketing units to ship wholesale gas to industrial clients and to those providing gas for heating.

Western Europe gets a quarter of its gas from Russia.

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.

“The process died down when the life cycles of nuclear plants were lengthened last year, now there is a new dynamism,” he added.

Koenig stressed the talks were not exclusive to Wingas so that the parties, mainly local utilities, may well opt for other suppliers, but they demonstrated their high level of interest.

Gas-to-power plants usually come in sizes of 400 or 800 megawatts (MW) each and construction costs around 1 billion euros ($1.43 billion) for the big ones.

Germany in early July is likely to decide to permanently switch off a third of its old nuclear power capacity, which it grounded after the Japanese crisis in mid-March.

The decision will shape Germany’s plans on how to get out of nuclear power altogether over the next decade.

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.

Koenig said his company, which is a 50/50 percent joint venture between BASF subsidiary Wintershall and Gazprom, had been more successful than rivals at the tricky task of renegotiating long-term gas import contracts with suppliers such as Russia or Norway.

“We are using revision clauses within the contracts and have achieved something there,” he said. “It is a challenge but we have got somewhere.”

German sector peer E.ON (EONGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) said last week low gas margins had weighed heavily on earnings, but its gas unit was still renegotiating with Gazprom about lowering contracted gas volumes and prices.

Another rival, RWE (RWEG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research), has turned to arbitration.

Over the past two years, oil-linked gas purchasing prices have stayed very firm for importers while their customers have been able to turn to spot gas at trading hubs that have sprung up inside Europe and this has squeezed traditional suppliers’ margins.

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.

“When coupled with the German market’s enduring attractions, this development leads many observers to be confident 2011 as a whole will be another good year,” said abstracts from the report, which is due to be published on May 11.

“In 2010 the European power trading business once again showed that economic turmoil and global uncertainty are no obstacles to further growth,” it said.

Trade in spot and forward power on exchanges and in the over-the-counter (OTC) market rose to 10,865 terawatt hours, up 9 percent on the year and up 25 percent over five years.

OTC trading accounted for 73 percent of the total.

The big markets apart from Germany are the Nordic countries, Britain, Spain and Italy, where continued growth is likely, 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.

If the closure of 7,000 megawatts (MW) of nuclear becomes permanent — which seems likely given current rhetoric — the market could see supply shortfalls at times of little wind and sunshine.

“If we assume that these reactors are not allowed to rejoin the grid in June, then I would think that October could become tight,” said Konstantin Lenz of Lenz Energy in Berlin.

“November and December could also become tight if the winter is cold and low in wind power supply, and the second half of May could be tight because there are no holidays,” he added.

Cold winters generate high power demand for heating and lighting while religious holidays such as Ascension and Whitsun relieve demand in the months when they occur.

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.

Within days of the nuclear disaster in Japan, the conservative federal government said it would reconsider a decision to delay closing the nation’s ageing nuclear stations and it ordered vast security checks. [ID:nLDE72D1P]

The three-month moratorium during which these checks are to be carried out is believed to be a precursor for permanent closure of the country’s seven oldest plants. [ID:nLDE72U2H4]

That did not stop voters in the regional state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, a conservative stronghold, from putting the anti-nuclear Green Party in the frame to head its first-ever state government. [ID:nLDE72R1DB]

RWE’s legal claim to an administrative court in Kassel seeks to clarify whether the government had the authority to order the shutdown of the plant.

“According to RWE’s legal interpretation, the government has no grounds to its legal basis to take measures,” it said in a statement, adding the reactors posed no safety risk.

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.

“I am absolutely certain that these plans will now be revitalized,” he told Reuters after a presentation of 2010 results.

The government in light of events in Japan ordered seven reactors shut for extra checks. It may not only renege on lifetime extensions for all its nuclear plants but also start shutting the seven plus some others prematurely.

When it granted an average 12 years of extra lifetime to reactors last autumn, local utilities under protest said they had to abandon a gas project pipeline worth 8 billion euros ($11.37 billion) as nuclear would clog up the power grids.

Among quick responses to the changed policy, Bremen local utilities Stadtwerke Bremen and Iserlohn last week said they will build a 445 megawatts (MW) gas turbine plant to be ready for production in 2013, with a number of partners including railway company Deutsche Bahn.

Citing this as an example of changed preferences, Koenig said smaller players building gas plants would inject more competition into a power market where four leading producers account for over 80 percent of total output.

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.

It is home to energy-intensive industrial blue chips such as carmakers Daimler (DAIGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) and Porsche, and engineering firms Heidelberger Druckmaschinen (HDDG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) and HeidelbergCement (HEIG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research).

The government of the south-western state holds an over 90 percent stake in utility EnBW (EBKG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research), which operates four nuclear power reactors.

Any decision a future Green-led government there reaches in the energy sector is likely to also impact national policy.

Newly reached parity in Berlin’s upper chamber of parliament (Bundesrat), which represents states, limits leeway for conservative (CDU) Chancellor Angela Merkel’s federal coalition government.

Under a new anti-nuclear mood across the country, pressure is rising on Merkel to review energy policy and, pressed to harness opposition, her cabinet is already trying to become opinion leader again in some of the areas.