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The Impending Power Gap

Where Will Germany's Energy Come From?

By SPIEGEL Staff

Part 3: Congestion on the Energy Autobahn

Another cause of the impending power gap is the outdated domestic power grid, which is already running up against its limits when it comes to the long-distance transport of power from wind turbines.

No one is more acutely aware of this problem than Klaus Kleinekorte. As the managing director in charge of technology at Transportnetz Strom, a subsidiary of Germany utility giant RWE, Kleinekorte manages more than 12,000 kilometers (7,453 miles) of RWE's high-voltage power lines and provides monitoring services for the entire German high-voltage grid. Kleinekorte's national "grid control room" acts as the brain for a complex national structure.

A wiring diagram on the wall of a nondescript building in Cologne depicts the German high-voltage grid, including power plants and substations. "A 380,000-volt power line is like an autobahn," Kleinekorte explains. "If everyone in Hamburg decided to drive to Italy on vacation at the same time, traffic would come to a standstill on (Germany's main north-south autobahn) the A7."

This is precisely what cannot happen in the power grid, where all voltage fluctuations must be offset within a few seconds, otherwise the entire system would collapse in no time. But it is precisely this equilibrium that has become so difficult to maintain in Germany nowadays.

The emphasis of power production is shifting more and more to northern Germany. In addition to being home to large wind farms, coastal northern Germany, with its ports, is the most logical site for new gas and coal power plants, especially when the potential future option of underwater carbon sequestration is taken into account.

But Germany's power grid is simply not set up for its new energy geography. The country lacks enough power line capacity to transport vast amounts of electricity from the north and east, regions with abundant wind and lower population density, to urban areas where most of the power is consumed.

According to Hans-Peter Villis, the CEO of electric utility EnBW, Germany barely avoided a major blackout in November 2006 because of these capacity problems. Quoting a report by the agency in charge of managing the European power grid, Villis says that "fluctuating high winds" and the failure of various high-voltage lines resulted in an "extremely difficult situation."

These shortcomings, "together with shrinking power plant capacity," says his counterpart at E.on, Wulf Bernotat, "pose an increasingly serious risk to the reliability of supply in Germany." According to Bernotat, blackouts, at least on a local basis, can no longer be ruled out.

"Our company alone is still awaiting the approval of about 800 kilometers (497 miles) of high-voltage lines in Germany," says Bernotat. Admittedly, he has just put his own network up for sale, to avoid the possibility of antitrust action by the European Commission.

Citizens have also successfully blocked the construction of new power lines. In the eastern state of Thuringia, Niederwillingen, a village of 700 inhabitants between the city of Erfurt and the Thüringer Wald region, has spent the last year and a half fighting the "Thuringia Power Bridge," a high-voltage line that is part of a planned system stretching from the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt to Bavaria.

Four thousand activists along the Thuringia segment of the power line are concerned about health hazards, disfigurement of the natural landscape and the resulting adverse effects on tourism and property values in Niederwillingen, voted the "Prettiest Village in Thuringia" in 1995. The activists are incensed over Economics Minister Glos's move to accelerate the approval process for power lines.

The Environment Ministry and the Economics Ministry are deeply divided over the question of whether and how the necessary grid expansion is to be accomplished. Economics Minister Glos is pushing for the construction of more than 800 kilometers (497 miles) of planned overhead power lines. Environment Minister Gabriel favors the use of costly new technologies and methods, such as direct-current transmission lines and underground cables. According to Gabriel, the addition of 850 kilometers (528 miles) of overhead power lines is "simply not feasible, because of protests," a conclusion he reaches partly on the basis of a written report he says that he received from E.on.

Meanwhile, the state of Bavaria finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place. If the power line project in Thuringia fails, the state will lack an important supply line. The growing power-related problems are more severe in Bavaria than in any other German state. Bavaria owes much of its rise from a poor agricultural state to an important economic center, with its automotive and high-tech industries, to nuclear power. The state is too far away from coal-mining regions and ports for coal power plants to be viable. Nuclear power plants, like the Gundremmingen and Isar I and II plants, supply two-thirds of the electricity consumed by Bavaria's 12 million residents. But these plants will eventually have to be shut down.

Emilia Müller, Bavaria's minister of economic affairs and a member of the conservative CSU, is responsible for ensuring an uninterrupted power supply to the state. She anticipates an "extremely difficult situation," one in which the state will have to find a way to make up for the 6,000 megawatts its nuclear power plants currently produce.

What about coal power plants? No one wants to build them in Bavaria, Müller says. As for renewable energy, "it won't be enough, not even with the best will in the world," she says.

What about buying electricity from neighboring countries? "Our neighbors in Austria and the Czech Republic need their electricity themselves."

Bavaria is inevitably dependent on outside sources. It depends on electricity being transmitted through long power lines from northern German wind farms, and it depends on Russian natural gas arriving at the northern Bavarian town of Waidhaus, the main terminal for Russian natural gas at the Czech-German border. Bavaria already has investors for the construction of natural gas power plants, including a 1,375-megawatt facility under construction near the central Bavarian city of Ingolstadt.

But long-distance transports bring instability to the power grid, creating the specter of sudden blackouts. And by depending on natural gas, Bavaria puts itself at the mercy of Russia. For a typical Munich resident, the idea of Bavaria becoming dependent on northern Germany -- or, even worse, Russia -- for its energy is nothing short of horrific.