Burghausen (dpa / lby) – Thousands of employees in the south-eastern Bavarian chemical triangle are worried about the future of their jobs because of the enormous increase in electricity prices. At a works meeting of Wacker Chemie in the presence of Federal Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil, works council chief Manfred Köppl said on Thursday in Burghausen: “Challenges are piling up at our site. The demand for electricity is increasing, network capacities are already exhausted, and the price of electricity threatens to call profitability into question deliver.”
An electricity highway for green energy, networking with pipelines for green hydrogen and a second, electrified railway track are urgently needed: “In the end, there are more than 10,000 good jobs here at the site alone.”
Wacker boss Christian Hartel said: “The energy prices in Germany are much too high in an international comparison.” Wacker is the only remaining world-class European player in the polysilicon business, the raw material for solar cells and computer chips. Energy-intensive companies need a secure supply of affordable, green electricity – now, not just in 2030.
The chairman of the industrial union BCE, Michael Vassiliadis, said: “The problems of the energy-intensive industry in Germany are concentrated in the Bavarian chemical triangle like in a magnifying glass.” The switch for industry and investment funding must be flipped quickly. “Solutions are now needed for the acute turmoil in energy prices, as well as a binding political expansion path and massive start-up aid as a basis for the overdue modernization and transformation of industrial locations in this decade.”
Federal Minister Heil assured: “We stand by the employees in the chemical industry and fight for good industrial jobs and social stability.”
