Citizens' initiative

Waste power or drive? Germany is running a dirty squandering right now.

Every year 10.5 terawatt-hours of renewable electricity are curtailed — enough for three million EVs. At the same time, public charging costs up to 79 cents per kilowatt-hour. The fix is a single paragraph in the Energy Act.

Sign the petition → How it works
Turbines idle, economy idles. 10.5 TWh thrown away · 3 million EVs waiting
02What one rotation is worth

Every rotation that does not happen wastes 62 km of clean driving.

Rotations
0
kWh generated
0
km EV range
0

10 kWh per rotation.
Enough for 62 km of EV driving.

A modern 6 MW wind turbine spins around ten times per minute. At full load it generates roughly 100 kWh per minute — enough for two full EV batteries. In one hour: power for 120 EVs.

If the turbine is curtailed during negative-price hours, that electricity never gets generated at all. The car that drives later is charged with expensive grey power from the evening peak.

Basis: 6 MW · ~10 rpm · 16 kWh/100 km

Europe must use every available clean kilowatt-hour. We cannot afford to throw energy away while consumers suffer from price spikes.
Dan Jørgensen · EU Energy Commissioner · interview with the Financial Times, 2026-04-02
01The idea

When electricity costs nothing, charging should cost nothing.

Whenever too much wind or solar power is on the grid, the wholesale price drops below zero. That means: whoever takes a kilowatt-hour gets paid to take it. Instead of sending this surplus into the most powerful and most flexible storage we have — the EV battery — it gets curtailed. Wind turbines are throttled, solar parks dialled down. Every electricity customer pays the bill through grid fees.

The charger is not the destination of any one electron. It is the reason that electron gets created in the first place. Ladefreunde · Campaign core

Our demand: whenever the day-ahead price is negative, taxes and levies on public charging drop out automatically. No subsidy, no fund, no pilot application. An if-then rule in the charging operators' backend. The power is there, the chargers are installed, the EVs are waiting — only the price signal is missing.

And no — we don't need to wait for bidirectional charging, for nationwide smart meters, or for a standards committee. Plug in, charge, done.

03Reflex and future

Three answers to the same energy crisis. Two build the future.

Reflex I — fossil
Fuel-tax rebate — a subsidy for combustion
  • ≈€3 bn is what a three-month fuel-tax rebate costs — from tax revenue.
  • 100 % of it is a fossil import bill: every euro flows out through the oil-and-gas supply chain.
  • 0 % contribution to climate, energy independence or e-mobility.
A direct subsidy for combustion. Prolongs import dependency, worsens the CO2 balance, takes pressure off the transport transition.
Future I — purchase
EV purchase bonus from the Climate & Transformation Fund — the entry to e-mobility
  • up to €4,500 federal share per EV — a direct purchase-price subsidy from the Climate & Transformation Fund, reinstated from 2026.
  • + Sales for Germany's carmakers — lowers the purchase price, secures production and jobs.
  • Open is the operating side: anyone without their own wallbox still pays 79 ct/kWh at the charger. That's the missing link.
The purchase bonus lowers the entry price. It does not deliver cheap operation — that needs surplus charging as the second piece.
Future II — operation
Surplus charging — the missing piece, no public spending
  • €0 cost to the federal budget: no subsidy, no fund, no programme.
  • €10 bn less per year in curtailment compensation — grid fees and the renewables surcharge drop for every electricity customer.
  • 100 % physically renewable electricity that would otherwise be lost; each kWh displaces grey power.
Taxes and levies suspend automatically during negative day-ahead prices. No application, no funding notice, no new agency. Purchase bonus + surplus charging: only together do they open e-mobility to 20 million tenant households as well.
04How it works

No waiting for a breakthrough. Just pass it through and use what already exists.

No technological miracle, no new device, no nationwide smart-meter rollout. The infrastructure is built, the data is public, the chargers already meter in real time. What's missing is a signal that gets through.

Step 01
Negative wholesale price
When too much wind or solar power is produced, the day-ahead price on the power exchange slides below zero. Today this happens for more than 800 hours per year — and rising.
Step 02
Levies drop out automatically
A one-line rule in the Energy Act: during a negative wholesale price, taxes and grid fees on public HPC charging are suspended. No application, no funding notice.
Step 03
The charger says: free right now
Prices negative — during the windows already published a day ahead, the charger shows: “Charge free — surplus power available.” Plug in. 15 minutes of fast charging. Drive on.
04+Why · How · What
Why
How
What
05Electrons with a biography

Where electricity comes from — when it isn't thrown away.

Erwin · North Sea · 11 m/s
The wind-turbine electron that never gets sent

Picture this: an electron named Erwin sits in a turbine on the North Sea coast. Sunday noon, strong wind, Erwin is full of voltage and ready to get onto the grid. The grid operator says: “No demand. You're useless!” Forget Erwin's drive. He's not allowed to work — and the operator gets paid by the state instead.

Three kilometres away, an EV pulls up at a charger. The app shows: “Charge free right now.” The driver plugs in. Suddenly there is demand. The grid operator releases the turbine — Erwin flows, lands in the battery, replaces fossil fuel.

Without the EV, Erwin would have been left behind, frustrated.
Sonja · Upper Bavaria · 34 °C
The solar electron that almost burned out

Sonja sits on a rooftop in Upper Bavaria. Saturday noon, June, cloudless sky. Sonja wants out — but no one needs her. The inverter dials down, the panel idles. Sonja waits.

Two streets over, Hubert rolls up in his BMW Neue Klasse — Bayerische Motoren Werke, the hope of an entire industry — to a charger. The app shows: “Solar surplus — charge free.” Hubert plugs in. Curtailment drops, Sonja flows through the inverter, onto the grid, into Hubert's battery. That evening he drives emission-free to the beer garden.

Instead of burning out on the roof, she's now moving two tonnes of metal — free of charge.
05+Where the power arrives

Plug in. Charge. Drive.

HPC power
300 kW
EV battery
75 kWh
Charge time
≈15 min

What takes minutes at a public charger
takes hours at a home wallbox.

The public charger delivers power — 150 to 400 kW at modern HPC fast chargers. The EV has capacity — a 60 to 100 kWh battery. Result: a full charge in 15 to 20 minutes. A home wallbox at 11 kW takes eight to nine hours for the same.

Negative-price windows on the exchange last one hour at a time. An HPC charger uses such a window in full — the car drives off on clean surplus power before the hour is over. The wallbox in that same time can't add 50 km of range. Where the market is most dynamic, home infrastructure simply fails.

Plug in. Charge. Drive.

Basis: 300 kW HPC · 11 kW wallbox · 75 kWh battery · 16 kWh/100 km

06The numbers

What is wasted is measurable.

Curtailment per year
10.5TWh
of renewable power curtailed every year — enough for three million EVs for a full year.
Sources: BNetzA Monitoring 2024 · Energy Charts (redispatch)
Cost per year
≈€10bn
Compensation payments for power never generated, passed on to all customers through grid fees.
Source: BNetzA / SMARD
Negative-price hours
800+ h
In 2025, more than 800 hours with negative wholesale prices — the trend is rising as renewables grow.
Source: Energy Charts (Fraunhofer ISE)
Year record 2026
−75ct/kWh
Lowest day-ahead price so far — on 6 April 2026. Whoever took the power received 75 cents per kWh.
Source: Energy Charts (Fraunhofer ISE)
07Who benefits

Everyone wins. Even those without an EV.

01
EV drivers
Up to €1,000 saved per year at 15,000 km. Charging isn't just cheaper than fuel — it becomes free.
02
20 million tenant households
Affordable access to e-mobility for the first time — without a wallbox, without a roof, without solar panels.
03
Charging operators
Negative wholesale prices plus GHG-quota revenue plus higher utilisation. Higher margin than the standard tariff — plus brand lift and new customers.
04
Electricity customers — households, industry, mid-sized companies
The wholesale price drops: when fossil marginal power disappears from peak hours, grey power loses its price-setting pull. On top of that, kWh that no longer get curtailed save compensation payments — grid fees come down, for everyone. No subsidy.
05
Automotive industry
Cheap operation is the strongest buying argument. No subsidy works more directly than a low charging price.
06
Climate
Physically real renewable power instead of greenwashing certificates. Up to 7 million t CO2 less per year.
08Your path

What you can do depends on who you are.

Newsrooms
Data, figures, quotes.
Real-time day-ahead data, core figures, economic context — we supply the dossier material.
Get in touch →
Politics & administration
One paragraph in the Energy Act.
Automatic suspension of levies during negative day-ahead prices. No fund, no new agency, no public spending.
Request the briefing pack →
Charging operators
Five chargers. Six months.
Business-model pitch, a backend software update, first-mover positioning with media traction.
Discuss a pilot →
Citizens
Sign and share.
The more voices, the harder to ignore. An email to your MP's office does the rest.
Go to the petition →
Sign

Free surplus charging — demand it now.

One email. One signature. One demand: when the wholesale price is negative, public charging should be free. No subsidy — just one paragraph.

No ads. No selling. No tracking. Revoke any time by emailing power@ladefreun.de
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Imprint

Information per § 5 of the German Telemedia Act (TMG)
ladefreunde — Citizens' initiative for affordable charging
68519 Viernheim, Hesse, Germany

Contact: power@ladefreun.de

Responsible for content per § 55 (2) RStV:
Dipl.-Ing. Martin Bächle, 68519 Viernheim

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