On 26 June everyone was reminded of what it would mean if the European energy markets were separated from each other. The price of electricity in Germany shot up in the morning to several times the usual level at that time. A technical error on the French electricity exchange Epex Spot, which brokers the volumes of electricity offered across national borders, had separated the national markets from each other in terms of settlement. The price that was called up was the price that would be set if purchases or sales could no longer take place across borders. And as the electricity supply in Germany is low in the morning hours because solar facilities are not yet generating, reliable nuclear energy is no longer available, additional coal-fired power plants are sluggish and too few gas-fired power plants are available as a buffer, this drove the price up. Instead of 100 to 200 euros per megawatt hour, it spiked to 2,000 euros.

As is often the case with environmental policy issues, opinions on the incident differ widely. The Green camp only sees a technical error and is full of praise for European energy policy co-operation. Unfortunately, this also makes it clear that Germany cannot do without French nuclear power or Polish lignite-fired power. The climate turnaround proclaimed by the German government in favour of solar, wind and (green) hydrogen is still a work in progress, but old fossil and nuclear ballast has already been largely jettisoned. While the government likes to present itself as a climate role model abroad, it is probably secretly happy about every increase in nuclear power elsewhere. In addition, dependence on imports is growing from year to year. In the first quarter, 40% more electricity was imported and 20% less exported compared to the previous year, according to Destatis. So are we just swapping fossil fuel dependency for electricity dependency?

The electricity trading error also provides an insight into the structural deficiencies of the entire transformation project. It seems more like a political house of cards than an engineering construct. Decisions to phase out nuclear power and coal were made without knowing whether electricity production would be able to manage without these power plants. It is still unclear how battery storage, additional hydrogen-capable gas-fired power plants and pumped storage power plants, for example, can bridge the production gaps that regularly occur at certain times of the day and year. This is a fundamental prerequisite for securing Germany's energy supply.

And although the key points of the power plant strategy are now available, they appear to be ideologically biased. Experts are already warning that there are not enough natural gas and hydrogen-fuelled buffer power plants. There is also a general lack of climate-friendly green hydrogen. Until February, the installed capacity of electrolysers for producing hydrogen from wind and solar power in Germany was around 66 megawatts; however, according to the updated national hydrogen strategy, this would have to increase to 10 gigawatts by 2030. This hydrogen gap could only be closed with gigantic quantities of imports, a. dependency that we wanted to get away from via the climate transition.

The huge discrepancy between political ambitions and practical implementation is obvious. The Federal Audit Office speaks of „unrealistic“ assumptions. And this has not gone unnoticed by the public. The expert commission appointed by Federal Climate Minister Robert Habeck himself to monitor the energy transition warns of a loss of public confidence. Only 20% of Germans still believe that the energy strategy will work. A new start in energy policy is therefore overdue – based on realistic targets and timetables. The climate turnaround is too important to be jeopardised through carelessness. The turnaround can only really succeed if citizens support its implementation.