"But no one has to defrost the fridge": Concerns about power failures are growing in Germany

Created: 09.12.2022, 19:00

By: Thomas Schmidtutz

Power poles: In Germany, there is growing concern about possible power shortages in winter.

© Federico Gambarini/dpa

In France, electricity is running out due to the maintenance of several nuclear power plants.

In Germany, the situation is not quite so bleak.

But the nervousness is growing.

Munich – In France, electricity is gradually becoming scarce.

Because an unusually large number of nuclear power plants have to be maintained, there is growing concern about bottlenecks in the power grid.

How serious the situation is now became apparent on Thursday (December 8) in Paris.

Around 125,000 households in the third, fourth and fifth arrondissement of the French capital were temporarily without electricity.

Now nervousness is also growing in Germany.

On Wednesday, a report from TransnetBW caused unrest.

In view of the supply situation in the network, the network operator asked users to save electricity via the app.

On Friday (December 9th), a paper from the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Environment also made headlines.

The officials in Stuttgart then warned that regionally limited power cuts of one and a half hours cannot be ruled out due to possible supply bottlenecks in winter.

In view of this, more and more observers are now asking themselves: is the power supply in Germany worse than expected?

Reassure suppliers: Blackouts unrealistic

Uncontrolled, large-scale power failures - so-called blackouts - are currently not considered realistic by politicians, the energy industry or the Federal Network Agency.

Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) recently emphasized that the availability of energy for power generation is secured for this winter.

And the forecast for French network operators for January is "in the range that we also expected," said a spokeswoman for Habeck on Friday.

In France, however, things could get very tight in January as numerous nuclear power plants are being maintained.

In order to prepare for this, the authorities simulated the temporary and controlled shutdown of the power supply in a region on Friday - but without actually switching it off.

Because the European power grids are linked, experts fear that there will also be consequences for the neighboring markets if there is a load shortage.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, the amount of electricity imported into Germany from France fell by 88 percent in the third quarter compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

Power supply: Regional bottlenecks possible

"If at all, there could be a controlled, regional and temporary interruption," said the Federal Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW).

Such so-called brownouts, which are intended to stabilize the networks, have also existed in the past.

"From a technical point of view, we are very well prepared." The Federal Network Agency currently estimates the probability that this could actually happen to be very low.

A status report on energy supply security to the Baden-Württemberg Minister for the Environment also refers to such scenarios.

According to the ministry, it states that the lower availability of nuclear power plants in France than originally assumed is currently the greatest challenge for the security of the power supply in winter.

Short-term regionally limited shutdowns of usually 90 minutes cannot be ruled out.

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Baden-Württemberg: App sounds the alarm

The warning via app on Transnet shows how Germany could deal with short-term bottlenecks in winter.

Due to the difficult supply situation, EnBW ordered 700 megawatts of capacity from Switzerland at short notice.

A spokeswoman said there was never a risk of the power being cut off.

But nobody has to defrost their fridge.

Transnet spokeswoman on the risk of temporary power cuts.

However, comparable bottlenecks could occur more frequently in winter, the spokeswoman admitted.

However, a "brownout" only threatens if it is not possible to buy enough electricity to eliminate the bottlenecks in the short term.

In this case, an interruption in the power supply of one and a half hours can be assumed.

"But nobody has to defrost their fridge." The situation is much better today than it was after the second stress test at the beginning of September.

At that time, the network operators had rated the situation in winter as "very tense".