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There are no wind turbines in southern Germany, but in the north they increasingly have to be shut down because the networks are overloaded.
That costs billions.
Experts blame politics in Bavaria for this.
Munich – The energy industry is expecting additional billions in costs to stabilize the power grid in the next few years.
The main causes include delays in network expansion and the inadequate expansion of renewable energies in the south.
According to companies and economists, these factors make complex “network congestion management” necessary – and this will probably continue for many years to come.
In the north, more green electricity is produced than is needed
There are no figures yet on the costs of this bottleneck management for the whole of 2023.
According to the Federal Network Agency, it was over 1.6 billion euros in the first half of the year and 4.2 billion in 2022 as a whole.
The costs include the compensation for unused green electricity, which is essentially generated for the garbage can.
In 2022, the four transmission system operators paid 900 million euros for this alone; in 2021, according to the Federal Network Agency, it was 800 million.
But what does “bottleneck management” actually mean?
In the north more green electricity is produced than consumed, in the south it is the other way around.
That's why electricity has to be transported from north to south.
Because the construction of the “Südlink” and “Südostlink” high-voltage lines has been delayed for years, the line capacity is often not sufficient.
If the lines are overloaded, green energy systems – including many wind turbines in the north – are “curtailed”.
In the south, however, conventional power plants, which produce much more expensive electricity, have to be started up.
“It is not always possible to transport the electricity from the generation plants to the consumers,” says a spokesman for the Federal Network Agency diplomatically.
The fact that this is the case is not least due to politics in Bavaria.
According to the original planning, the two large direct current lines (HVDC) should have been completed in 2022.
Former Prime Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) insisted on laying it as an underground cable, which will delay completion until 2027 or 2028.
A prominent opponent of the route was Free Voters leader Hubert Aiwanger.
Laying underground cables not only takes years longer, but is also twice as expensive as building overhead lines.
Consumers nationwide are paying the costs for the failed energy transition in the south
Now there is a lack of network capacity, which is why wind turbines have to be switched off again and again.
The wind turbines in the North Sea, which are important for the energy transition, delivered less electricity in 2023 than in the previous year due to bottlenecks in the onshore network.
Tennet said a total of 19.24 terawatt hours (TWh) of wind energy was transferred to land, around nine percent less than in 2022. In purely mathematical terms, this could cover the annual needs of around six million households.
There are too few wind turbines in southern Germany.
(Symbolic image) © picture alliance/dpa |
Rabea Gruber
Tennet put the total wind power generation on land and at sea in Germany at 148.97 TWh in 2023.
According to a spokesman for the authority, three percent of green electricity was curtailed in 2022; the interventions were small compared to total electricity generation.
But over the years this adds up to a double-digit billion sum.
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Consumers also bear the costs – not just in the south, but nationwide.
The congestion costs are included in the uniform nationwide transmission network fees, and the exchange electricity price is also nationwide.
The fees for the local distribution networks, on the other hand, vary regionally, but should also be standardized.
According to calculations by Verivox and Check24, overall network fees will be around a quarter more expensive this year, around 100 euros per year for a family of four.
“Electricity prices are already rising throughout Germany due to the increasing network fees as a result of the large redispatch effort,” says energy expert Raimund Kamm.
Southern Germany benefits from a “reverse state financial equalization”
But is that fair?
“Market prices corresponding to the actual costs would be lower in the north and higher in the south, and very high in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg,” says economist Mathias Mier from the Munich Ifo Institute.
The redispatch is “a reverse state financial equalization from which companies in southern Germany benefit greatly.” When it comes to electricity supply, the whole of Germany shares in the higher costs in the south, including those caused by politics.
“Private households in particular pay for this,” says Mier.
For the experts, the task is therefore clear: the fastest possible network expansion and also a faster expansion of renewable energies in the south - overall, not just solar systems.
There is actually only a long-term solution, says the scientist.
Meanwhile, Ifo researcher Mier recommends: “And that would be dividing Germany into two or more electricity price zones.” Northern Germany would then have a competitive advantage in terms of electricity prices.
But politics and business in the south naturally reject this.
By Carsten Hoefer