BSW on climate and energy

The BSW wants to lower taxes on energy and abolish the CO₂ levy. No gas station should be allowed to charge more than €1.50 for fuel. The platform justifies this with rising prices and falling purchasing power.

The BSW wants lower taxes on energy. The CO₂ levy should go. That is an extra charge on gasoline, gas and heating oil. Gasoline and diesel should cost no more than €1.50.

The platform calls for lower energy taxes and an end to the CO₂ levy. It names a ceiling of €1.50 for fuel that would apply to every gas station. The state government is supposed to act through the Bundesrat (the chamber of the states); the platform notes that the state earns money from high prices through the value-added tax. The party calls current prices a rip-off and says people are burdened by high costs and growing insecurity.

The BSW wants to buy energy from all suppliers and to negotiate with Russia over gas. The Nord Stream pipeline is to be used because, in the party's view, shipping liquefied gas is costly and cumbersome.

The BSW wants to buy gas from Russia again. There should be talks with Russia about this. The gas should come through the Nord Stream pipeline. The party says gas by ship costs too much.

The party calls for long-term import contracts. The program treats cheap energy as a precondition for investment, competitiveness and jobs, especially in chemicals, food production and machinery. The public sector is to ensure a reliable and affordable supply.

The BSW considers renewable energy indispensable but not sufficient on its own. It calls for a technology-neutral energy mix with guaranteed capacity, which for now includes lignite, and wants to support research into new reactor technologies.

The BSW says wind and solar power alone are not enough. There should be several sources of energy. For a certain time, that includes lignite, a type of coal. The BSW also wants to fund research on new reactors.

Baseload power plants are to remain as long as no equivalent alternatives are available. The program expects lignite use to phase out in the medium term and therefore calls for new ways to provide baseload supply. Research on nuclear fusion and on concepts such as the dual-fluid reactor is to be supported. The program also lists small run-of-river hydropower plants on the Elbe, Saale and Mulde as a goal. It regards the exit from natural gas and nuclear power as rushed.

The BSW wants to expand renewable energy in a planned manner and steer solar installations onto roofs and sealed surfaces. Wind power should grow in a regionally balanced way, biogas should be strengthened, and citizens, municipalities and cooperatives should share in the revenues.

The BSW wants more power from sun, wind and biogas. Solar panels should go on roofs and parking lots, not on fields or in forests. Wind turbines should be spread fairly across the state. Citizens and towns should share in the profits.

Solar installations should also be placed preferably on land whose soil was badly damaged by earlier use. For wind power, the program relies on repowering, meaning the replacement of old turbines with more powerful ones, and on taking residents' concerns into account. Biogas is seen as a controllable complement to weather-dependent sources; besides electricity, direct feed-in of gas is also to be supported. Electricity and heat should be produced more by municipalities and cooperatives. Citizen-owned and municipal power plants are to get more money, simpler permits and easier access to financing, especially in rural areas.

The BSW wants to abolish the Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz (EEG, the Renewable Energy Sources Act). It would be replaced by targeted investment grants, mainly for installations on roofs and sealed surfaces.

The EEG is a law. It governs support for power from sun and wind. The BSW wants to abolish this law. Instead, there would be money for building certain installations, for example on roofs.

So far, the EEG governs, among other things, the payments for green electricity fed into the grid. The program wants to subsidize investments directly instead. The grants are meant for roofs and sealed surfaces. There would be no expansion in forests, and expansion on farmland would be limited.

The BSW wants to coordinate the expansion of renewables with the expansion of grids and storage and speed up both. Grid fees should be capped, allocated according to who causes the costs, and kept socially acceptable.

The BSW wants to expand power grids and power storage faster. Grid costs should be shared fairly. Regions with a lot of wind power should not pay more than others. Grid fees should stay affordable.

Storage facilities should be approved faster and get clear rules; new installations should include storage where feasible. Grid expansion and the digitalization of grids should move ahead faster. To stabilize grid fees, the program lists state equity stakes, overhead lines instead of underground cables, and better grid operation. Dynamic grid fees are meant to reward consumption that eases the load on the grid. A hedging obligation for large energy purchases is intended to favor large batteries and flexible consumers over expensive large power plants.

The BSW wants to adapt the shift in heat supply to the conditions of a large, sparsely populated state. Instead of fixed requirements, technology-neutral rules and longer transitions should apply, and costly requirements in energy and emissions law should be reviewed.

Heating is supposed to become more climate-friendly. The BSW wants less strict rules for this. Rural areas should be able to use other solutions than cities. The BSW wants to review costly regulations.

According to the program, large heat pumps can be used in municipal networks. Investments by municipal utilities in district heating should be checked for whether they make sense, because decentralized heat pumps are said to be easier to implement and to prevent new monopolies. The program considers district heating unrealistic in many rural areas. It views requirements from EU and federal law as a burden without workable solutions. Funding programs and laws should be tailored more closely to Saxony-Anhalt.

The BSW calls for suspending or abolishing national carbon pricing because, in its view, it does little for the climate and mainly burdens low and middle incomes. As long as it exists, the revenue should be returned to citizens as a climate bonus.

People who buy gasoline or heating oil pay a price for CO₂. The BSW wants to stop or abolish this price. As long as it applies, citizens should get the money back. This is called a climate bonus.

The program sees German carbon pricing as a special national burden and calls for global solutions to climate protection instead. The second EU emissions trading system (ETS II) starts in 2028 and, in the program's assessment, will bring further costs. The federal and state governments should therefore provide social compensation early on. If the federal government does not act, Saxony-Anhalt should set up its own state relief program.

The BSW rejects wind turbines and photovoltaic installations in forest areas as a matter of principle. The opening of forests to wind power is to be reversed. Photovoltaics are to be steered onto roofs and land that is already sealed.

The BSW wants no wind turbines in forests. Solar arrays should not stand there either. The party says turbines harm animals, plants, and the forest climate. Solar panels should go on roofs. Fields and meadows should stay free.

The platform argues that Saxony-Anhalt is among Germany's least forested states and that installations fragment forests and harm water balance, cooling, and recreation. It says the damage cannot realistically be offset. For every installation, the BSW demands a mandatory species protection review and binding environmental assessments. Priority is to go to the vitality of the forest, neither its industrialization nor setting it aside. Farmland and grassland are to be spared from solar arrays.

The BSW rejects underground CO₂ storage (CCS) in Saxony-Anhalt, particularly in the Altmark region. The party sees risks for the environment, health and cost-effectiveness. Instead it wants to fund decentralized energy storage and reforestation.

The BSW does not want CO₂ stored underground. This applies to all of Saxony-Anhalt. The party thinks it is dangerous. It would rather plant new forests. It also wants to fund storage for green power.

The platform points to possible leaks that could contaminate groundwater or let CO₂ collect near the ground. In the Altmark, it says, geological stability is not assured because of many boreholes and cavities. It also argues that CCS uses a lot of energy and could prolong fossil fuel use. As alternatives, the BSW names state funding programs for decentralized storage such as power-to-gas, and new forests and tree-lined avenues as natural carbon sinks.