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Merkel: we will meet green energy goals

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Merkel: we will meet green energy goals
Photo: DPA

Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday she was determined to push forward with a plan for rapidly expanding Germany’s renewable energy supply, despite criticism from within her own government.

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She met her coalition partners for an “energy summit” at her office in Berlin on Friday and demanded that prices must remain “affordable” and there must be no interruptions in supply, but the tempo of expanding renewables should not be slowed.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported how plans to expand renewable energy had recently come under attack from within Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union-Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and Free Democratic Party (FDP) coalition with some members complaining that rapidly expanding renewable energy was too expensive to support.

Guidelines set by the government require a four person household to pay roughly €60 more annually to support renewables.

Economics Minister Philipp Rösler, leader of the FPD, called that an “alarming signal” and called for a thorough reform of the system.

By contrast CSU leader Horst Seehofer said Germany could even achieve its renewable energy goals sooner than expected. The government is aiming to make renewables account for 35 percent of the country’s energy by 2020 and it is already at 25 percent.

But a rapid reform is not in sight, the paper said, as the federal and state governments agreed on Friday to a “national dialogue” to come up with appropriate solutions.

“You can imagine that it won’t be easy,” Merkel said, but reiterated her commitment to energy generation change which she said everyone involved was also signed up to.

The Local/mw

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