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Car dealers have not yet registered a noticeable boost in sales due to the new electric car subsidy, and many buyers remain hesitant, as they expect clear rules and a reliable start. At the same time, there is growing concern that the subsidy will severely impact the used car market through further declines in residual […]

The Ministry of Economic Affairs has received a draft amendment to the Energy Industry Act that aims to more closely link the expansion of wind and solar power to grid expansion. Regions would be considered capacity-limited if they regularly generate more renewable electricity than the distribution network can handle. Reiche’s goal is not a blanket

Germany has enshrined its commitment to phasing out fossil gas in its political platform, yet Chancellor Friedrich Merz is courting LNG supply agreements in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. This is precisely where the double standard lies, because while Russian gas was excluded using moral arguments, energy cooperation with authoritarian Gulf states

RWE is completely abandoning its offshore wind power project in France. This move comes shortly after EnBW’s loss-making withdrawal from British offshore projects, which triggered a €1.2 billion write-down. This once again highlights how quickly offshore wind energy calculations can change when returns, subsidies, and policy remain unstable. (faz: 04.02.26) RWE withdraws from French offshore

EnBW’s battery storage subsidiary Senec is once again under scrutiny due to fires and explosions involving Senec home storage systems in recent years. As a result, Senec replaced approximately 100,000 storage units for customers, according to the company, incurring costs in the “hundreds of millions.” EnBW is now examining several options, including continuation of the

Due to excessively thick ice, no LNG tankers can currently call at the terminal off Rügen. The Prorer Wiek bay and the port of Mukran are completely frozen over. This makes the shipping channel unsafe to navigate. Without safe passage, there can be no arrivals and no regular shipping operations at the terminal. (nordkurier: 06.02.26)

Christoph Ahlhaus, chairman of the German Association of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses and a member of the CDU, has written a strongly worded letter to Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The letter expresses his “utter dismay” at the state of Germany’s economy. Ahlhaus is thus making it publicly clear that small and medium-sized businesses consider Merz’s economic

ZF is pulling the plug on its e-bike business. The company is suspending sales of its drive systems with immediate effect after losing a major customer, Raymon. This drive system was intended to open up a new business area for ZF. The company aimed to become less dependent on the volatile automotive sector and gain

Battery manufacturer ACC, a joint venture between automotive and energy companies Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz, and TotalEnergies, has definitively abandoned its plans for a gigafactory in Kaiserslautern. At the same time, the consortium is also canceling the battery factory in Termoli, Italy. This effectively ends a project in Kaiserslautern that was intended to provide a boost to

Cities and municipal utilities are planning multi-billion-euro projects for new district heating networks, investing long-term in pipelines, transfer stations, and generation capacity. At the same time, operators are increasingly concerned that they will lose customers. Many property owners might opt ​​for their own heat pumps even before the pipelines are completed, because the subsidies are

Stellantis is restructuring its powertrain strategy, and the €22 billion write-down marks the price of this change. CEO Antonio Filosa wants to offer fewer pure electric vehicles and more hybrids because, according to the company, it needs to reconnect with its customers. Filosa says that under his predecessor, the “pace of the energy transition was

The town of Groß-Gerau has rejected Vantage Data Centers’ €2.5 billion data center, primarily because it cites the threat of terrorism, cyberattacks, and hybrid threats as risks, while also fearing increased local heat stress from building blocks up to 30 meters high. Furthermore, the municipality questioned the reliability of the business tax revenue and criticized

Germany is reporting record wind and solar power output, but at the same time a new problem is growing. Operators are increasingly taking plants offline voluntarily, even though production would be clean and cheap. This is because on many days the market tips into oversupply, and wholesale prices plummet. This surplus alters the incentives for

The new poverty statistics paint a stark picture, as poverty continues to spread. In Germany, around 13.3 million people were considered at risk of poverty in 2025. This corresponds to 16.1 percent of the population. In 2024, the figure was 15.5 percent. The figures come from data on income and living conditions provided by the

The North Sea Summit in Hamburg touted offshore wind as a recipe for affordable electricity. But the narrative crumbled shortly afterward. Costs are rising, the necessary grids are lacking, and the industry is demanding further government subsidies. As always, the political rhetoric sounds grander than what the system can deliver. North Sea Summit: Big Promises