BERLIN: Opposition leader Friedrich Merz, who is tipped to be Germany’s next chancellor, has vowed to build 50 gas-fired power plants if his conservatives win the Feb. 23 snap election, the t-online news outlet reported on Sunday.

“We need to build 50 gas-fired power plants in Germany as quickly as possible, which will be connected to the grid immediately,” Merz, who heads the CDU/CSU conservative bloc, told t-online in an interview.

Gas-fired electricity production in Germany jumped by a record 79% in November from the month before as utilities scrambled to offset a second straight month of sharply below-normal output from wind farms.

Wind power output was 25% below year-prior levels in October and November due to slow wind speeds, depriving power firms of a key electricity source just as winter set in.

Wind farms supplied 27% of German utility electricity in 2023.

Merz, the head of Germany’s CDU/CSU conservative bloc, is in line to succeed Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose fractious coalition with the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats collapsed in November over contradictory plans to revive the nation’s ailing economy.

IMF cuts forecasts for German economy this year and next

He told t-online it had been a “serious strategic mistake” by Scholz’s government to “shut down the last three nuclear power plants that guaranteed reliable power generation in the middle of the energy crisis.”