Iran Press/ Europe: The money set aside stands at up to 440 billion euros ($465 billion), according to the calculations, which provide the first combined tally of all of Germany's drives aimed at avoiding running out of power and securing new sources of energy.
That equates to about 1.5 billion euros a day since the beginning of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine on Feb. 24. Or around 12% of national economic output. Or about 5,400 euros for each person in Germany.
Europe's preeminent economy, long a byword for prudent planning, now finds itself at the mercy of the weather. Energy rationing is a risk in the event of a long cold spell this winter, Germany's first in half a century without Russian gas.
The country has turned to the pricier spot or cash, energy market to replace some of the lost Russian supplies, helping drive inflation into double-digits. There's no security in sight either, with the push to build up of two alternatives to Russian fuel - liquefied natural gas (LNG) and renewables - years away from targeted levels.
"The German economy is now in a very critical phase because the future of energy supply is more uncertain than ever," said Stefan Kooths, vice president and research director business cycles and growth at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
"Where does the German economy stand? If we look at price inflation, it has a high fever."
The more costly power will be painful indeed for an economy already forecast to shrink the most among G7 nations next year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Germany's energy import bill will grow by a combined 124 billion euros this year and next, up from growth of 7 billion for 2020 and 2021, according to data provided by the Kiel Institute, presenting a major challenge for the country's energy-intense industries.
The country's chemicals sector, the most exposed to rising power costs, expects production to fall by 8.5% in 2022, according to the industry association VCI, which warns of "huge structural breaks in Germany's industrial landscape".
The 440 billion euros earmarked to fight the energy crisis is already near the roughly 480 billion euros that the IW says Germany has spent since 2020 to protect its economy from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The money includes four relief packages worth 295 billion euros, including the 51.5 billion euro bailout of power firm Uniper and a 14 billion rescue package for Safe, formerly known as Gazprom Germania; up to 100 billion in liquidity for utilities to secure their sales against default; and around 10 billion on infrastructure to import LNG.
The sum also includes previously unreported commitments of 52.2 billion euros by state lender KfW to help utilities and traders fill up gas caverns, buy coal, replace sources of gas procurement and cover some margin calls, according to KfW data reviewed by Reuters.
Despite these efforts, there is little certainty over how the country can replace Russia; Germany imported around 58 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas from the country last year, according to data from Eurostat and the German industry association BDEW, representing about 17% of its total energy consumption.
Germany wants renewables to account for at least 80% of electricity production by 2030, up from 42% in 2021. At recent rates of expansion, though, that remains a remote goal.
Germany installed just 5.6 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity and 1.7 GW of onshore wind capacity in 2021, the latest year on record.
To achieve the 80% goal, new onshore wind installations need to increase around six-fold to 10 GW annually, according to an October report by the federal government and Germany's states. Solar installations must quadruple every year to 22 GW, it said.
Susi Dennison, the senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think-tank, said that while Germany had done a "good sticking plaster job" by replacing gas volumes with power from the spot market, it had lost its standing as a thought-leader in clean energy.
"To me what's really absent in Germany's strategy is a similar attention to a rapid scaling up of renewables, that now is the time to invest in the infrastructure of hydrogen and wind power, to replace gas."
Germany has no LNG infrastructure of its own because of its longstanding reliance on Russian gas.
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