Problem for renewable energy: expensive grid stabilisation

Stabilising the German power grid was more expensive in 2022 than ever before

The electricity industry had to spend 4.2 billion euros to counteract grid bottlenecks. The previous year it had been 2.3 billion. Around 900 million euros alone were due for electricity from renewable sources that could not be generated because of missing grids. These figures are in the new annual report of the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur).

A record amount of a good 8 billion kilowatt hours of electricity from renewable sources (previous year: 5.8 billion) was curtailed in 2022 because of grid bottlenecks. This mainly affected offshore wind power (51 per cent) and onshore wind power (39 per cent).

But solar power is also increasingly being lost because of missing grids: in 2021 it was still 237 million kilowatt hours, in 2022 already 620 million. The cost of redispatch with conventional plants alone more than tripled in 2022 to 1.9 billion euros.

The increase in interventions had various causes; for example, at times high wind volumes made intensive countermeasures necessary. In addition, low water levels on the Rhine during two low-water periods meant that coal transport ships could only be partially loaded. This in turn led to “limited operational readiness of several power plants in southern Germany”. The shutdown of the Gundremmingen C nuclear power plant at the end of 2021 also led to increased redispatch.

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Kind regards,

Herbert Saurugg

Original post (German)

For years I have been publishing extensive analyses of what happens in the event of a blackout on my website.

Since 2019 I have also been cooperating with GAIA. Besides guest articles, my newsletters are also published here for interested readers as they appear.

My website (German)