Germany turns power importer after nuclear freeze

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FRANKFURTHANOVER, April 4 (Reuters): Germany has become a net importer of power mainly from France and the Czech republic since its nuclear moratorium, which involves seven old reactors shut for at least three months, utility industry association BDEW said Monday. The group at meetings during the Hanover industrial fair said since the March 17 order by the government to close nuclear units of around 7,000 megawatts (MW) capacity, the country had turned a net importer of 50 gigagwatt hours (GWh) a day. Prior to this, a scenario typical of March had been in place, involving net exports of 70 to 150 GWh a day. "Power imports from France and the Czech Republic have doubled, those into the Netherlands and Switzerland have halved," it said. In addition to the seven units built before 1980 and two Vattenfall Europe reactors which had been down since 2007, E.ON's Grafenrheinfeld nuclear plant is also shut for routine maintenance. Wholesale prices of German quarterly power in 2011 have risen by 12 per cent, as has the benchmark contract for round-the-clock power supply in 2012, BDEW said. Carbon emissions prices have also risen by 10 per cent.