Germany has a new governing coalition this year, and the new Energy and Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel says the entire Energiewende needs to be relaunched. Craig Morris has no problem with that opinion – as long as we remain focused on the right outcome. As I recently argued, German politicians currently seem excessively focused on protecting consumers from rising power prices. At the end of December, Gabriel announced that the entire energy transition needs to be “reloaded,” and he seems exclusively focused on rising power prices. He is quoted in the press as saying, “The energy transition must not hamper German industry in the long run.” None of this makes much sense on a factual level, unfortunately. Retail power prices are rising, but the picture for industry differs depending on whether we are talking about firms that are exempt or not from the renewables surcharge. And Germany’s neighbors are worried about unfairly low prices in Germany, with Dutch aluminum firm Aldel filing for bankruptcy at the end of December because no direct power connection to … Continue reading New Year’s resolutions for the energy transition