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Barges on the Rhine in North Rhine-Westphalia: only lightly loaded due to the low water level
Photo:
Hans Blossey / IMAGO
Coal-fired power plants are intended to help alleviate the energy crisis caused by the lack of Russian gas.
However, the federal government now fears problems with the supply of precisely those power plants in the autumn and winter.
"Due to the very limited inland waterway transport, the built-up coal stocks could quickly be reduced," says the energy supply situation report of the Federal Ministry of Economics, which is available to the Reuters news agency.
"The additional warehouses that were and are still being procured in southern Germany will most likely not be filled until winter," says Baden-Württemberg.
The main reason is the low water level of the Rhine, which does not allow larger coal transports by ship.
A significant improvement is not to be expected here.
The congested rail network also makes delivery by train difficult.
The power plant operator EnBW is faced with a challenge: either coal is used sparingly, in which the systems are started up and shut down as required, according to the situation report.
However, this greatly increases the risk of power plant failures.
On the other hand, regular use of the power plants leads to a significant increase in consumption.
Pipeline from the Rostock oil port would have to be "upgraded immediately".
In the middle of the week, the federal government passed a regulation according to which coal and oil transports should be given priority by rail.
Nevertheless, there is little confidence in the situation report dated Tuesday: Due to a wide variety of factors such as construction sites, bottlenecks in vehicles and incidents, there are delays and bottlenecks in rail freight traffic, it says, and: "Due to planned work by Deutsche Bahn in the Rhine Valley the situation will continue to deteriorate.« Most of the hard coal comes along the Rhine route from North Sea ports such as Rotterdam.
The mining of domestic hard coal ended in December 2018 in the Ruhr area.
But it is not only the situation with regard to coal supplies in the south-west that is critical.
According to the government, there are also problems with the oil supply in the north-east.
The Schwedt and Leuna refineries will have to stop using Russian pipeline oil from the end of the year because of the embargo.
According to the report, the emborgo will at least lead to higher prices.
But also: "EU embargo and German exit from pipeline oil with a corresponding lead time by the end of the year would be manageable - albeit with the acceptance of price increases and possible restrictions." The Leuna refinery can be supplied with around 75 percent of oil via the Polish port of Gdansk will.
This is contractually secured.
Schwedt could also achieve an output of around 75 percent if the pipeline from the port of Rostock was “upgraded immediately”.
Schwedt supplies large parts of eastern Germany and also parts of western Poland with fuel.
Considerations to additionally supply the region with refinery products from West Germany are again met with rail bottlenecks: »High demand and scarce transport capacities in the area of rail freight transport lead to a challenging situation in mineral oil logistics.
Some products from refineries cannot be transported away.« We are talking about cancellations of sometimes more than 50 percent of the transports by the railway transport companies.
Apr/Reuters