The German government has realized that the Energy Efficiency Act passed in 2023 is holding back the economy. The law’s only real efficiency was the speed with which it expanded Germany’s bureaucracy. Yet instead of abolishing the bureaucratic monster outright and making a genuine change of course in energy policy, the government is merely planning a new law with only slightly less red tape.
The ministry puts it this way: “With the Act to Accelerate the Implementation of the Energy Efficiency Directive, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) aims to provide significant relief for the economy. The existing Energy Efficiency Act (EnEfG) will be resolutely simplified, in line with the coalition agreement, thereby making a substantial contribution to cutting bureaucracy.”
Elsewhere in the World
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently announced plans to build an AI data center that will consume almost 44 TWh/year of energy at full capacity. Total commercial energy consumption in Germany stood at 936 TWh/year in 2024. A single data center in the US would therefore consume about 5% of the commercial energy used by the world’s third-largest economy.
If Germany wants to keep pace in that field, a comparable data center on its own soil would have to be at least a medium-term goal. That would require vast amounts of energy and far less bureaucracy. Germany has too little of the former and far too much of the latter.
For one of the world’s largest economies, the only logical response would be to boost power generation with all available force. That means creating good conditions for the construction of power plants. Every technology of the future, above all artificial intelligence, depends on energy to an extent not previously seen.
Germany, however, is moving in the other direction: shutting down power plants, demolishing cooling towers and wrapping energy consumption in bureaucracy.
Energy Is Too Expensive
The result, especially for commercial consumers, is managed scarcity. Germany’s legal framework makes energy consumption harder for businesses on top of already high costs, holding back economic development. Reforms have been announced, but it remains unclear how much this government will still be able to pass. Since the new law still exists only on paper in the ministry, the current rules show what companies already have to contend with.
Once a business consumes 7.5 GWh/year, it must introduce an energy management system under ISO 50001 or an environmental management system under the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS). Companies consuming more than 2.5 GWh/year must document economically viable final energy-saving measures in implementation plans. Such measures typically come from energy audits or from energy or environmental management systems.
Data centers must also use so-called renewable energy and make use of waste heat. Transparency and reporting duties are added on top. They must, for example, inform their users about specific energy consumption.
In the US, meanwhile, Meta is simply building its own power plant for its data center.
Bureaucracy on an Industrial Scale
The energy threshold at which German companies become subject to bureaucracy is roughly 5,900 times lower than the consumption of Meta’s data center. The narrowness of Germany’s economic thinking could hardly be clearer.
Take the cement industry, a conventional but highly energy-intensive sector. The Hellweg region of Westphalia in north-western Germany has numerous cement plants. The Erwitte/Geseke cement region alone has five plants and, according to a municipal analysis, needs around 3.17 TWh/year.
One of those plants is Heidelberg Materials’ Geseke/GeZero cement plant. With 84 employees, it produces about 750,000 tons of cement and consumes 0.8 TWh/year in total energy. It is therefore far above the threshold requiring the introduction of ISO 50001 or EMAS.
A practical estimate based on information from the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control puts the effort required to introduce ISO 50001 or EMAS from scratch at 100 to 260 person-days. Even once the system is running, 30 to 70 person-days are still required each year.
Roughly speaking, introducing ISO 50001 or EMAS costs about $250,000, with ongoing annual costs of $40,000. The plant still consumes 55 times less energy than Meta’s data center.
More Command-and-Control Energy Policy
The enormous administrative burden on businesses exists only because dispatchable energy is in short supply in Germany’s power grid. The federal government is responding with command-and-control measures, including dynamic electricity prices, dynamic grid fees and load management for industry. Power is available only when the system can provide it. No business can operate on that basis.
At the same time, controllable consumers such as heat pumps and charging points for electric cars could be temporarily curtailed when the grid is overloaded.
A cold winter day, no wind and an overcast sky: “We regret that we can heat your home with your heat pump only to 17C today. Unfortunately, your electric car is only 30% charged. Yours sincerely, your network agency.” That could soon be reality in Germany’s power grid.
It hardly needs saying that an internationally competitive AI data center could not operate in Germany under such conditions.
Turn the Nuclear Plants Back On
Common sense says that in such a situation, power plants have to be built. China puts roughly one new coal-fired plant into operation every day. Germany blows them up. The construction of new gas-fired plants is delayed.
To cover Germany’s need for baseload power, at least the 20 GW of gas-fired capacity set out in the coalition agreement will be required. In January 2026, however, the European Commission initially gave only in-principle approval for 12 GW of additional dispatchable capacity.
The expansion of solar and wind energy, meanwhile, is running into limits. More installations do not deliver more power. Some energy companies are retreating. Nevertheless, the government continues to rely on the unsuccessful and costly energy transition.
The quickest and most obvious solution to Germany’s energy problem would be nuclear power. A 2025 study on the feasibility of returning to nuclear power shows that Germany could revive up to nine nuclear plants in the short to medium term. The figures assume that work would have begun last year. Even when applied to the current year, the timelines still broadly hold. "Beyond that, the cooling infrastructure, grid infrastructure, transport infrastructure and ultimately the legal infrastructure remain in place at all 17 nuclear power plant sites”, energy expert Björn Peters told Statement in an interview.
A simple political decision could therefore still reverse course within a realistic time frame. Germany currently has 31 nuclear reactors out of service, according to the study. Its authors point to a lack of information, noting that public details on the status of decommissioning and on specific reactors are limited. Industry experts, however, contributed to the report on condition of anonymity.
A Restart Is Possible
The study identifies four classes for restarting individual plants. Class one covers power plants that have been shut down but have not undergone extensive decommissioning. Such plants would need maintenance, minor repairs or replacement work, the rehiring of personnel and the purchase of nuclear fuel.
In class two, significant decommissioning work has begun. Parts of the turbine island and the nuclear steam supply system have been dismantled. A considerable number of important components, such as the reactor pressure vessel, steam generators and fuel-handling systems, remain intact and could be reused if the missing parts were replaced.
Class three applies where most of the main components of the nuclear steam supply system, turbine and generator have either been removed or are beyond repair. Restarting such a plant would usually require the installation of an entirely new nuclear steam supply system.
Class four requires the greatest effort. In such cases, the containment building, the massive safety shell of a nuclear reactor, is either irreparably damaged or has been partially or completely demolished. The sites, however, still have infrastructure that could support the construction of a new reactor.
New Construction Is the Global Norm
Nuclear sites that have already been returned to greenfield status fall outside the scope of the report and were not considered. The chart shows which reactors could return to the grid, how quickly and with what capacity.
Even if Germany’s energy problems would not be fully solved in this way, nuclear power would bring noticeable relief to the energy market and to prices, while also making some command-and-control bureaucracy unnecessary.
Other countries show that new power plant projects are the global norm. Britain alone is planning 6 GW of nuclear power, Italy 3.2 GW of gas-fired plants, while Japan is building new nuclear reactors. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), around 78 GW of nuclear capacity is currently under construction in 15 countries worldwide. The momentum is therefore not merely a fringe phenomenon. Nuclear power, after all, is considered CO2-neutral.
Germany is clearly driving the wrong way in energy policy.