The insolvency of Germany's third-largest aluminium producer illustrates high power costs are threatening the future of the country's metal production industry, the WVM trade body said on Monday.
Voerde Aluminium GmbH said on Friday it had declared insolvency. The company will continue production operations of 115,000 tonnes and seek to restructure.
"The production of metals, especially aluminium, is endangered by high electricity costs which are no longer internationally competitive," WVM president Ulrich Grillo said in a statement.
The insolvency at Voerde Aluminium was "an indication of the creeping process of de-industrialisation", Grillo said.
The association has said more help is needed by industries that use lots of energy, to compensate for the country's high electricity costs and to prevent them from leaving the country.
"Energy-intensive industry needs secure, clean and affordable electricity," Grillo added.
After last year's Fukushima crisis in Japan, Germany decided to shut more than half a dozen older nuclear plants and phase out all nuclear power within a decade.
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