Snapshot: German grid

One in six German companies have gone “off-grid”, that is generate their own power. Another 25% are considering joining them (source: German Chamber of Commerce). There are several drivers of this but the most pertinent is that Germany, in an effort to promote “green” energy, is shutting down its remaining nuclear power plants and subsidising renewable energy sources. For German businesses this means that they have to pay a hefty “green tax” on each energy bill to fund the subsidy and suffer potential outages because of the unreliability of most renewable sources, hence the desire to generate their own power. We will cover this issue in more detail in a future review.