The Impact of the German Response to the Fukushima Earthquake

The German response to the Fukushima nuclear power plant incident was possibly the most significant change of policy towards nuclear power outside Japan, leading to a sudden and very substantial shift in the underlying power generation structure in Germany, an enthusiastic leading proponent of renewable power. This provides a very useful experiment on the impact of a supply shock in the context of increasing relative generation by renewable compared to conventional fuel inputs into power production. Our quasi-experimental exploration of a modified demand-supply framework finds that despite the swift, unpredicted change in nuclear power, the main impact was a significant average increase in prices, surprisingly particularly at low residual load levels.