Renewable energies: Record compensation for unused electricity
Created: 2022-12-14 05:22
By: Lisa Mayerhofer
According to a report, compensation payments to energy suppliers for electricity not fed into the grid have reached record levels.
The reason for this is the slow expansion of the network.
Berlin/Bonn – Renewable energies – for example from wind power – are to play an increasingly important role in the supply of electricity in Germany.
But there is one fundamental problem with the expansion: the lines for transporting the energy are missing.
Grid dismantling is not progressing in this country - and that is why there are ever higher record payments to the electricity suppliers as compensation for the unused energy.
And that is at the expense of electricity customers.
Compensation claims of over 807 million euros due to unused electricity
According to the Federal Network Agency, in 2021 the operators of renewable energy plants had compensation claims of more than 807 million euros because their electricity could not be fed into the grid due to grid bottlenecks.
This so-called feed-in management is a safety measure to relieve grid bottlenecks.
The network operators have to pay the compensation.
They pass the money on to the electricity customers via the network charges.
In 2021, 93 percent of the compensation went to operators of wind turbines, especially in northern Germany, and another 5 percent to photovoltaic system operators.
A good 5,800 gigawatt hours of electricity were not used in 2021 because of the grid interventions.
For comparison: Wind turbines in Germany fed a total of 111,500 gigawatt hours of electricity into the grid in 2021.
Three-digit compensation payments had already been made in previous years.
In 2020 it was 761 million euros for a good 6100 gigawatt hours, a year earlier 710 million euros for 6500 gigawatt hours.
The editorial network Germany (RND)
had previously
reported on it.
Bartsch: Habeck needs to get grid expansion going
The left-wing faction in the German Bundestag criticizes the non-use of climate-neutral electricity.
"It is grotesque that we are discussing the danger of blackouts and at the same time electricity worth over 800 million euros is being thrown away every year," said parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch on Monday in Berlin, according to a statement.
It is "unacceptable" that electricity customers are being asked to pay for rising grid fees.
Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) must “finally” get the sluggish network expansion going and protect consumers from such costs.
(lma/dpa)
