Germany Fired Up Coal Plants It Said Were Closed Forever. Here Is Why.
Published · Updated · 5 min read
Germany built one of the most powerful green energy systems on Earth. Then winter arrived, and the wind stopped blowing.
The result forced a country that had spent decades and billions of euros moving away from fossil fuels to do something it had promised it would never do again: burn coal.
A Renewable Giant With a Hidden Weakness
By 2024, Germany had installed nearly 190 gigawatts of renewable capacity, the largest such fleet in Europe and the fourth-largest in the world. Renewables accounted for 62.7 percent of net public electricity generation that year. Wind alone contributed 33 percent. Solar hit a record 72.2 terawatt hours.
On paper, the transition looked like a success.
But those numbers hide a serious problem. Every winter, Germany faces a weather pattern known as “Dunkelflaute”, a German word for dark, windless periods that can last for days or even weeks.
During these stretches, renewable output collapses. Germany’s own meteorological service found that the country experiences, on average, two events per year where combined wind and solar output drops below 10 percent of normal capacity for at least 48 consecutive hours.
When the Grid Staggered
During one such period in November 2024, renewables covered only 30 percent of electricity generation. Fossil fuels covered the remaining 70 percent.
The situation grew worse in early 2025. Wind output from January to April fell 31 percent year-on-year to just 39 terawatt hours, the lowest level recorded since 2017. This happened even though Germany had added 30 percent more wind turbines over that same period.
Coal stepped in to fill the gap. It accounted for 22.7 percent of domestic electricity generation in the first half of 2025, making it the second-largest power source in the country, behind wind.
These were plants that Germany had publicly committed to retiring.
Nuclear Shutdown Made It Worse
Germany made the reliability problem harder to solve by shutting down its last three nuclear reactors in April 2023. Those plants had been supplying 6.3 percent of public electricity generation.
An analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that if the nuclear fleet had stayed operational through 2024, clean energy generation could have reached 94 percent instead of 61 percent, nearly eliminating the need for fossil fuels entirely. Electricity prices could have been roughly 23 percent lower, a saving of around €18 per megawatt hour.
Instead, with no nuclear and no wind, Germany turned to its neighbor.
France, which runs 17 nuclear reactors supplying about 65 percent of its electricity, became Germany’s emergency backup. In 2024, Germany imported 67 terawatt hours of electricity, a 23 percent increase from the year before, while exporting only 35 terawatt hours. Much of what it imported was French nuclear power.
The country that shut down its own nuclear plants was now depending on someone else’s to keep the lights on.
High Prices, Grid Strain, and a Structural Gap
The crisis also exposed a geographical problem. Most of Germany’s wind capacity sits in the north and east. Most of its industry and population sits in the west and south. The transmission grid connecting them has not kept pace with renewable deployment.
When power cannot move from where it is made to where it is needed, grid operators must shut down wind farms in the north and fire up coal and gas plants in the south. That process adds cost, and those costs flow directly to consumers.
German households now pay among the highest electricity prices in Europe, at €40 per 100 kilowatt hours.
Batteries Cannot Fill the Gap Yet
Germany has moved fast on battery storage. In 2025, the country added 6.57 gigawatt hours of new battery capacity, bringing the national total to 24 gigawatt hours. It now hosts 2.2 million battery storage systems delivering 16 gigawatts of power output.
But the scale of the problem dwarfs that progress. Germany consumes roughly 1,300 gigawatt hours of electricity every single day. Total battery storage covers less than two percent of that figure.
Batteries also struggle in the cold. Lithium-ion cells can suffer permanent damage when charged at temperatures below freezing, limiting their usefulness during the exact winter conditions when backup power is needed most.
Gas Plants as the Awkward Bridge
The government’s answer is natural gas. The current coalition approved plans for 10 gigawatts of new gas-fired power plants to be online by 2032, with the requirement that they be built “hydrogen ready” so they can switch fuels in the future.
An additional 2 gigawatts of plants would be required to convert to hydrogen at an earlier stage, supported by temporary state funding.
The total cost of this gas buildout is estimated at €40 billion. The first construction auctions are unlikely to begin before late 2026.
That timeline leaves a gap. Until those plants are running, and until green hydrogen becomes available at scale, Germany will continue to rely on coal and imported nuclear power every time Dunkelflaute arrives.
What This Means Beyond Germany
Germany’s experience carries a direct lesson for every country pursuing a fast renewable transition.
Installed capacity is not the same as reliable generation. 190 gigawatts of wind and solar produces almost nothing during an extended dark, windless winter. Grids need power sources that can be switched on when weather does not cooperate.
Retiring coal and nuclear before replacement capacity is ready creates the exact crisis Germany is now managing. And battery technology, while advancing quickly, cannot yet store enough energy to cover days or weeks of renewable shortfall.
As of early 2026, Germany still intends to reach climate neutrality by 2045. The path it has laid out combines expanded renewables with green hydrogen, better grid infrastructure, more storage, and higher energy efficiency.
But the past two winters made one thing clear. The grid that kept millions of Germans warm through the cold did not run on ambition. It ran on coal, gas, and French nuclear power.
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