The Free State of Bavaria no longer expects to take over the Uniper hydroelectric power plants. “So there are no plans now, in the near future, for Uniper to say goodbye to this business, but they stand by hydropower, see it as one of their most important sources of income, where we generate sustainable, even base-load energy,” said State Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) on Tuesday after a meeting of the Bavarian cabinet in Munich.
In his eyes, it is therefore not up for debate that the Free State of Bavaria “wants to, would have to or even could” get involved there. As a reminder: Last August, the Free State called on the federal government to negotiate the takeover of the Uniper hydroelectric power plants. “We are aiming to take over the entire Bavarian Uniper hydroelectric power plants into a state-owned operating company,” Bavaria’s Environment Minister Thorsten Glauber (Free Voters) explained at the time.
But he wasn’t the only one who addressed such demands to Berlin. The takeover was often described as a “historic opportunity” to correct the mistake of privatizing Bavarian hydropower. Uniper is, among other things, Germany’s largest gas trader. After Russia stopped gas deliveries, the company ran into difficulties due to high replacement costs. The German state subsequently put together a stabilization package worth billions. Since then, the federal government has owned a good 99 percent of the company.
In Bavaria, hydroelectric power plants on the Isar, Lech, Danube and Main are part of Uniper’s assets. In total, it would have involved the takeover of 97 hydropower plants with a total output of around 970 megawatts and around 4,800 gigawatt hours of electricity yield per year. The hydroelectric power plants generate around a third of Bavaria’s electricity production from hydropower.