Germany’s Nuclear Exit: A Self-Inflicted Energy Gap
Germany has been at the forefront of the renewable energy transition, but its decision to switch off its last nuclear power plants in 2023 removed a crucial source of stable, low-carbon baseload electricity. When the inevitable Dunkelflaute arrived in early 2025—bringing prolonged low wind speeds and overcast skies—the country found itself in a tight spot. Without nuclear, the missing baseload had to be covered by gas-fired power plants, leading to a surge in gas demand and, with it, soaring energy prices.
The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies highlighted that while total gas demand for power generation is generally declining in Europe due to the renewables rollout, Dunkelflaute episodes still create extreme volatility. When wind and solar drop, gas demand spikes, placing strain on both energy markets and consumers. During Germany’s winter 2024/25 Dunkelflaute, the country had no choice but to fire up more gas plants to stabilize the grid—driving up costs at a time when consumers were already grappling with high energy bills.
Critics argue that Germany phased out nuclear too soon, removing a clean and reliable baseload source without having sufficient alternatives in place. While the goal was to transition fully to renewables, the reality is that without storage solutions and flexible backup generation, the grid remains vulnerable to these intermittent dips.
Storage Solutions: The Key to Avoiding Future Dunkelflauten
If Europe wants to break free from this cycle, large-scale energy storage is a must. While gas-fired plants currently serve as the go-to backup, cleaner alternatives are emerging:
- Battery Storage – Lithium-ion batteries are great for short-term balancing, but they struggle to provide power for more than a few hours. Long-duration storage solutions, such as flow batteries and emerging solid-state technologies, could extend this window significantly.
- Hydrogen Storage – Unlike batteries, hydrogen has the potential to store energy for days or even weeks. Excess renewable power can be used to produce green hydrogen, which can then be stored and converted back to electricity during extended Dunkelflaute events. This makes hydrogen a promising alternative to gas for covering those tricky low-renewable periods.
- Flexible Grid & Demand Response – Strengthening interconnections between countries, investing in smarter grid management, and deploying demand-response systems (where businesses and consumers shift usage based on availability) can help balance energy supply more effectively.
The Future: Lessons from Germany
Germany’s winter 2024/25 Dunkelflaute was a harsh reminder that the energy transition isn’t just about installing more wind turbines and solar panels—it’s about ensuring that power remains reliable even when the weather doesn’t cooperate. While renewables are undoubtedly the future, a resilient system needs a mix of solutions: smarter grids, energy storage, and, for now, a flexible backup source to keep things running when renewables take a break.
So, next time someone casually drops Dunkelflaute into a conversation, you’ll know it’s not the latest health trend—it’s a critical energy challenge that we need to solve to keep the lights on in a net-zero world.
