Gas crisis in Germany: network overload – associations warn of fan heaters
Created: 2022-07-28Updated: 2022-07-28 11:59 am
By: Alexander Eser-Ruperti
In the course of the energy crisis, various alternatives to heating with gas are being discussed.
According to the technical associations VDE and DVWG, there should be no fan heaters.
Berlin – The gas crisis in Germany is putting a massive strain on households, and gas prices are exploding.
Consumers are anxiously awaiting the forthcoming additional payments to providers - and are now hoping for further relief from the traffic light coalition under Olaf Scholz (SPD).
When looking for a way out of the price spiral, there are various options that are currently being discussed.
Fan heaters also come up again and again in this context.
However, if the technical associations VDE and DVWG have their way, they shouldn't play a role - they could cause the power grid to collapse.
Gas crisis in Germany: Associations warn - buying a fan heater is a bad idea
In the course of the gas crisis in Germany, the question of alternatives to gas heating that are as cheap as possible has arisen again and again.
In view of the threat of price shocks, all options are being played through - the technology associations VDE and DVWG are now explicitly warning of one of them: fan heaters.
The warning against the use of mobile electrical direct heating devices such as fan heaters, radiators and radiant heaters applies regardless of the question of how economically sensible their use is for consumers themselves.
The associations fear overloading of the power grids.
Buying a fan heater is, in their opinion, a bad idea, as reported by kreiszeitung.de.
The fear of gas bottlenecks in the coming winter is causing a boom in demand for fan heaters in the middle of summer.
Associations now specifically warn against their use.
© Felix Hörhager/dpa
According to dpa
, Martin Kleimaier from the Association of Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies (VDE) explained
that the power supply in Germany was not designed for a simultaneous additional load of this kind.
He also raised concerns that, under certain conditions, the current capacity of power plants might not be sufficient for the additional load on very cold days in winter.
Frank Gröschl from the German Technical and Scientific Association for Gas and Water (DVWG) said in this context: "The gas heating can continue to be operated in any case." He recommended taking measures to increase the efficiency of gas heating systems as early as the summer.
Gas crisis in Germany 2022: Consumers are looking for alternatives to gas heating - heat pumps are highly traded
The actually planned ban on gas heating in 2024 was only recently overturned by the traffic light.
But even if the ban on gas heating does not come in 2024, consumers will be looking for alternative forms of heating – for cost reasons alone.
Basically, gas heating is still on the decline, and not just since the gas crisis in Germany in 2022. The problem: almost all alternatives have some catch.
Heat pumps in particular are currently being debated as a promising, perspective alternative.
The problem: their installation is also expensive.
Nevertheless, there are some things that speak in favor of installing a heat pump - as long as you can afford it given the high costs.
The advantage of heat pumps is that they work without fossil fuels.
They draw heat from the ground, groundwater and air that is already present.
The heat from the environment is then transferred to a refrigerant that evaporates even at low temperatures.
The temperature of the steam is then increased by means of a compressor.
In this way, heat can be transferred to the heating system.
One disadvantage is that the drive is partly powered by electricity - which can sometimes be expensive.
In the federal government, there is still great hope in the technology: Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) actually wanted to install 500,000 of these systems every year from 2024 - of which there are around a million so far.
