Utilities including RWE and E.ON could be forced to sell coal fired power plants in exchange for extended operations at their nuclear power plants, under proposals by the German Federal Antitrust Office.

Nuclear power plants are Germany's most profitable large-scale power generators and investors in E.ON, RWE, Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg (EnBW) and Sweden's Vattenfall were eyeing billions of euros of extra profits, reports Reuters. The German government wants to change a law requiring the nuclear plants to be shut down the mid-2020s.
 

"One might have to conclude that power plants capacities have to be allocated differently," said the president of the German cartel office, Andreas Mundt.

Competitors to Germany's four largest utilities - which control 80 per cent of the energy market - argue they have made plans to build new power plants on the basis of a phase-out of nuclear power.

Keeping the plants would give the four large operators an unfair advantage. To rectify that problem the biggest generators could either sell the nuclear power plants or other power plants, the cartel office suggested.

An agreement "not only has a financial aspect but also imporant effects on competiton," Mundt said.

The German government wants to agree the framework of an extension before parliament's summer recess and set a final plan by the autumn, Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle said.

The timing of a deal to change the law, eagerly awaited by investors and utilities, had been uncertain as the environment ministry wanted the government to first draw up an overall national energy plan.

Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel is committed to allowing longer running times for the reactors. RWE and EnBW are faced with the prospect of shutting some of their plants this year unless a new deal is brokered soon, Reuters reported.

Source: pepei.pennnet.com