Chapter VIII - The German Electricity Reform Attempts: Reforming Co-optive Networks

Abstract

The electricity industry belongs to the most powerful companies in Germany, and constitutes an economic and political power cartel which until today was able to avoid all attempts to change the framework conditions for energy policy in Germany. German electricity generation in 1994 was undertaken by three sectors: public utilities, industry and coal-mining companies, railway companies. The concentration process of the German electrical power industry has led to a high degree of centralization. In this process, the existing political and economical power structure played an important role. The legal and institutional framework of the electrical power industry cements this structure and secures the privileges of big utilities. Attempts to reform the co-optive networks of the ESI have been numerous. In the middle of the 1980s a strategy for an about-turn in energy policy combined with the re-communalization of energy supply, was formulated by the Oko Institute. This concept stressed the role of municipalities as energy-policy decision-makers and organizing municipal utilities as energy-service companies. The future of nuclear power in Germany is of decisive importance. In case of a red-green Federal Government the phasing out of nuclear power in Germany will be on the agenda.