Hubert Aiwanger flops down in his chair on the government bench. He rummages in his pocket, pulls out his cell phone and places it on his desk next to the blue folder. So he doesn’t come with completely empty pockets, the Economics Minister. The question is: What else did he bring with him to the state parliament? A solution to the energy crisis? Ludwig Hartmann, the leader of the Greens parliamentary group, who sits in the front row opposite the minister, would also like to know that. Aiwanger grins over at Hartmann, he says: “We continue to work steadily and solidly.” Is there anything else? “No surprise eggs,” says Aiwanger.
It is his third government statement that the economics minister is about to make – and his most important. It’s about energy policy, a mega-topic that the energy crisis has pumped up into a giga-topic. Big expectations? Still, hardly anyone remembers Aiwanger’s speech. Judgments on Bavarian energy policy seem to have been made for a long time, there is no other way to interpret what was recently read in the comment columns: hot air, only declarations of intent, a lack of plan.
It could have something to do with these comments that Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) does not hold the government statement himself – and sends the Minister of Economics into the fire, who, despite (or because of) the haphazard criticism, missed the title “Bavarian Energy Plan”. Nonsense, Kerstin Schreyer (CSU) will say during the debate and point out that Söder is staying in Rotterdam, where his CSU colleague Manfred Weber is running for the presidency of the European People’s Party. The prime minister simply cannot split himself into two, says Schreyer.
“Number one, just not in the wind.”
Well, whatever. Aiwanger’s performance begins at 2:06 p.m. So the curtain rises for the next act of the drama “Energy Policy in Bavaria”, which the black and orange state government considers a highlight – and the opposition considers a fabulous tragedy.
“Bavaria is the leading country in renewable energies,” says Aiwanger, which in fact does not fall into the “surprise egg” category. The state government draws the picture of the energy wonderland at every opportunity. If you want to do a fact check, you can study the diagrams on the website of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. According to this, 52.3 percent of Bavarian electricity comes from photovoltaics (17.1), hydropower (14.7), biomass (13.4), wind energy (6.4) and other regenerative sources (0.7). At 47.7 percent, almost half of the electricity still comes from nuclear energy, coal and gas.
“We are number one in renewable energies, just not in wind,” Prime Minister Söder is happy to say to the critics. However, if shaky comparisons between countries are made here: In Schleswig-Holstein, 86 percent of the electricity in 2020 will come from renewable sources. Bavaria and energy, every political camp follows its own calculation path. That doesn’t make the debate any clearer.
To get some order, it helps to focus on two core issues: nuclear power and wind power. The state government sees nuclear power as the simplest solution to bridging the gap in renewable energies – and to make Bavaria freer of energy imports from Russia. Söder and Aiwanger therefore want to run the Isar 2 nuclear power plant near Landshut, which is scheduled to be shut down by the end of the year. That the federal government has long since waved it off? That it is now too late for continued operation, already organizationally, as the nuclear power operators say? Doesn’t prevent Aiwanger from repeating the nuclear requirement in his government statement. The SPD and the Greens also find this an expression of lack of planning.
With regard to wind power, Aiwanger defends that the state government is sticking to the controversial 10-H rule. It states that each new wind turbine must be at a distance from the nearest houses that corresponds to ten times its height. With modern, 200 meter high systems, that is two kilometers, which slows down the expansion of wind power in Bavaria. In the meantime, the CSU and FW want to at least allow exceptions to the 10-H rule. In forests and along highways, there should only be a distance of one kilometer. Likewise on military training areas, in commercial and industrial areas. Söder has promised a total of 800 new wind turbines without giving a time frame. There is no mention of this number in Aiwanger’s speech. He only speaks of a “multiplication” that is necessary for wind energy. And that Bavaria will “ultimately build significantly more” wind turbines “than some green federal states”.
The SPD is calling for 10 H to be abolished
SPD faction leader Florian von Brunn is too vague. It is “disappointing” that the Free State is advancing wind energy “at most in small steps”. With the planned exemptions for the 10-H rule, the state government is creating “a real bureaucracy monster” that “ties the next millstone around the neck” of the energy transition in Bavaria. Brunn also does not see a conflict between wind power and species protection. The problem “is not called Milan, it’s Markus,” says the SPD faction leader – with a view to the red kite, which opponents of wind power like to lead as a victim of the wind turbine rotors. Only one thing helps, says Brunn: abolish 10 H.
“Pathetic, Minister,” said Hartmann, leader of the Greens parliamentary group, about Aiwanger’s speech. He had “only heard criticism about what Berlin has to do differently”. Filling gas storage tanks, stocking up on coal supplies, lowering energy taxes, that’s what Aiwanger is demanding in the direction of Berlin. At the same time, says Hartmann, you can feel “this drive for action” in the federal government in particular, which is missing in the Free State with the energy transition. Martin Hagen (FDP) also speaks of a “failed energy policy” by the state government, Ulrich Singer (AfD) of an “energy policy odyssey”. No surprise eggs, that also applies to the opposition this Tuesday.