Expert explains: The blackout is really that likely

Created: 09/26/2022, 10:15 am

By: Matthew Schneider

How secure is the German power supply in winter?

A study shows when things get tight.

Is a blackout really imminent?

An expert gives hope.

In the shadow of the gas crisis, the situation on the European electricity market has gradually escalated.

Winter is now approaching and the political warnings of a large-scale network failure – colloquially known as a blackout – are getting louder.

But with the calls, a lot gets mixed up.

We analyzed the stress test - and show where the problems really lie. 

What does the stress test mean?

On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economics, the four German transmission system operators undertook a more stringent stress test, which is available to

.

The aim was to clarify whether the German power grid can withstand various hypothetical crisis scenarios.

For this purpose, the failure of various power plants and the massive operation of electronic fan heaters were simulated to the hour.

Detlef Fischer, General Manager of the Association of Bavarian Energy and Water Industries, explains: "One of the biggest problems at the moment is that France currently has just under half of its nuclear power plant fleet connected to the grid due to repairs, maintenance work and low river levels.

That must now be compensated for by Germany, among others.” But the Federal Republic would like to forego exports in order to protect its gas-fired power plants.

In the worst scenario, France only manages to keep two-thirds of its nuclear capacity connected to the grid by winter.

"In addition, a drought situation was simulated, which makes it difficult to transport coal via the rivers," Fischer continues.

"These scenarios were embedded in February 2012, the coldest month in ten years." According to the German weather service, temperatures there were sometimes a good minus 30 degrees.

An extreme scenario in which gas consumption would increase significantly.

"That's why a physical gas shortage was also included in the worst scenario, which estimates 50 percent of the remaining gas power plant output in southern Germany and Austria as unavailable," says Fischer.

When is there a blackout?

"The problem would not be the amount of electricity, but much more the transport," explains Detlef Fischer.

What is meant is that even in the worst scenario, there is not enough electricity in the European grid for a maximum of twelve hours to completely cover German requirements everywhere.

The transport is more critical: "In order to transport electricity over long distances, you need special high-voltage lines," explains a spokeswoman for the transmission system operator Amprion, who helped design the stress test study.

If production in one region fails, it cannot always be compensated for by overproduction from other regions.

"So the question is not only how much electricity a power plant generates, but also where it feeds the electricity into the grid and how much transport capacity there is," summarizes the Amprion spokeswoman.

"The riskiest scenario is therefore a dry, cold and windy winter," explains Detlef Fischer.

"Southern Germany would be particularly affected: Here, the demand from industry is high and generation from wind power is low.

If the worst framework conditions come together in the stress test, things will get very tight.” Because in the north there are 30 gigawatts of wind power available at peak – 20 times the capacity of Isar 2. But that is far more than the grid can handle.

Originally, the Südlink line was supposed to connect the north German wind turbines with the south German industrial centers from 2022.

However, Bavaria's ex-Prime Minister Horst Seehofer rejected the construction in 2014.

In the meantime, the lines are being laid underground – experts now only expect their use at the end of the 1920s.

If the scenario described above were to occur, the additional output of around eight large gas-fired power plants from abroad would be needed to fully supply all regions of Germany during the most critical hours.

We would then be talking about a brownout – a short-term local failure.

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How realistic is the blackout?

The result of the stress test: In some scenarios, regional power outages could occur within a few hours.

But the situation is currently easing somewhat, explains Detlef Fischer: "It's raining more again, which is causing the level in the rivers to rise.

As a result, coal freighters can drive again and French nuclear power plants are going back on line.” Almost all plants are expected over the winter.

In addition, the gas storage tanks are filling up at record speed: "We have reached 90 percent filling level well ahead of schedule - that makes a gas shortage less likely," says Fischer.

An expectation shared by the market: the gas price has almost halved since the end of August.

"How gas consumption actually develops depends on the temperatures in winter and the behavior of consumers," explains Fischer.

In the best-case scenario, the reservoirs should still be 40 percent full in February.

"If the situation continues to develop positively, the most severe shortage scenarios will become much less likely."

What helps against the blackout?

But it is still too early to breathe a sigh of relief: "Even in more harmless scenarios, both a gas and a local power shortage cannot be ruled out," explains Fischer.

"We have to save what we can, because less demand prevents failures, lowers prices and thus energy costs for consumers." In addition, all generation capacities, including coal-fired power plants, would have to be connected to the grid.

“And we need the remaining nuclear power plants for the time being: their additional supply lowers electricity prices and calms the industry.

They also make a non-negligible contribution to grid stability.”

In the end, however, a large gap would remain: “In the rather improbable extreme scenario, we are missing more than eight gigawatts, which we could not replace with any German power plant due to the lack of lines.

We already have to buy the required power in our neighboring countries, not everything has been contracted by a long shot,” says Detlef Fischer.

In case of doubt, however, they have the same problems as in Germany, so there could be delivery failures: "Saving energy is therefore by far the most important tool we have to get through this winter safely."

The stress test in figures

The stress test of the four transmission system operators was a highly complex simulation of various demand and supply situations in Germany and its neighboring countries.

We have summarized the most important figures from the study on the power supply here.

As many kilowatt hours must be generated as are consumed, otherwise there is a risk of a power failure.

There is a constant exchange in the European interconnected grid, depending on where the electricity is currently needed.

In a less critical scenario, German power plants will generate around 590 terawatt hours of electricity between October 2022 and 2023.

The bottom line is that 27 of them are exported.

The majority (25 percent) comes from wind power.

In the most critical scenario, generation drops to almost 580 terawatt hours due to the failure of some natural gas and coal-fired power plants.

A part can be offset by imports.

Due to the remaining gap, in extreme cases there could not be enough electricity in the European system for a maximum of twelve hours to fully cover German requirements.

 Grid stability: Gas power plant failure in Bavaria cannot be replaced with wind power from Lower Saxony

Network stability is a completely different question.

Simplified: without high-voltage lines, electricity must be generated where it is consumed.

If a gas power plant in Bavaria fails, it can hardly be replaced with wind power from Lower Saxony.

In the worst case, 8.6 gigawatts of output from abroad would be needed to compensate, which corresponds to around eight gas-fired power plants.

It is priced in that capacities from Austria could be lost.

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Nuclear power plants as a gas replacement hope

If the remaining three nuclear power plants go off the grid as planned by the end of the year, they will have generated 8.3 terawatt hours of electricity, around 1.4 percent of total annual production.

If you go into stretch mode, it will be an additional 4.9 terawatt hours.

This means that 0.9 terawatt hours of electricity from natural gas and 1.5 from coal can be replaced in Germany.

Depending on the efficiency of the gas-fired power plant, this corresponds to savings of around two terawatt hours, or 0.02 percent of Germany's annual gas requirements.

A large part of the electricity would be exported due to the grid.

At the European level, this could replace 2.4 terawatt hours of electricity from natural gas and 1.8 terawatt hours from coal.

The contribution to grid stability was also calculated: when stretched, the nuclear power plants have a combined output of three gigawatts.

Due to their location, however, only 0.5 gigawatts of this can be used for additional grid stability.

In the worst-case scenario, the demand for output from abroad would therefore drop to 8.1 gigawatts.