Germany will build new gas-fired power plants to be operated with hydrogen as Europe's biggest economy looks to boost its climate-friendly energy sources, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday.

"We are not losing sight of the goal of decarbonization: in order to stabilise supply, we will build new gas-fired power plants which can be operated with hydrogen in the future," Scholz said in a speech to the VKU local utilities association.

In a prepared text of the speech, he said the capacity of the new plants would be 17-21 gigawatts.