Schulz said that anyone ordering new nuclear power plants forgets that it takes fifteen years to build a new nuclear power plant and that the whole process is very expensive. When the nuclear power plants were ready, electricity prices were two to three times higher than the prices of renewable energy, which would have been widespread in Germany by that time, was the reason.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, energy prices rose in Germany. The Christian Democrats of the CDU/CSU, the far-right AfD and the liberal FDP have called for an extension of the use of nuclear power. Germany shut down its last nuclear power plant in April.
The country is building electrification highways across the country to bring renewable energy from the north, where it is generated, to areas with high energy consumption. According to Schulz, one of the reasons for the high electricity prices is the slow expansion of power lines in Bavaria.
“If the big power lines had already been extended from northern and eastern Germany to the southwest, we would have already had lower electricity prices,” Schultz said on Friday. He denounced that the Bavarian state government opposed the rapid expansion of power lines.
Voters in Bavaria go to the polls on October 8 to elect a new state government.
