Federal Network Agency boss Müller currently sees no “immediate danger” in Germany’s power supply. Nevertheless, the federal government wants to be prepared for the worst case scenario. Foreign Minister Baerbock sets Ukraine as a cautionary example.
Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock emphasized the importance of reserve power plants to safeguard the energy supply, even against external attacks. In the afternoon she visited the Thyrow gas turbine power plant in Brandenburg south of Berlin with the President of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller. It is considered systemically important and serves as a reserve power plant that can step in quickly in the event of a widespread power failure.
“We are currently experiencing in Ukraine that critical infrastructure, that energy infrastructure, can become a target,” said Baerbock. The security of Germany is also endangered from outside, and with it the power grids. For this reason, reserve power plants such as the two gas turbine power plants of the energy company LEAG in Brandenburg could become more important in order to make the energy supply resilient to external attacks, says Baerbock. “These power plants will also play a role in our national security strategy, which we as the federal government are currently writing.”
Bundesnetzagentur boss Müller said: “Germany has an extremely good power supply.” He sees no “imminent danger” coming to Germany this winter and next. Müller also said that in 2023 he would also work on regenerative hydrogen becoming the “energy source of the future”.
According to the energy company LEAG, gas turbine power plants are suitable for short-term intervention in the event of a sudden disruption in the power supply due to the short reaction and start-up times. They could prevent a single disruption from escalating into a blackout. In addition to the Thyrow power plant near Zossen (Teltow-Fläming district), LEAG also operates a second gas turbine power plant in Ahrensfelde. Natural gas storage facilities enable the power plants to be operated independently of the natural gas network.
Meanwhile, Chancellor Olaf Scholz expects, in his own words, that Germany’s gas supply will also be secured in the winter of 2023/24. “We can assume that, like this year, if nothing unforeseen happens,” said the SPD politician to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. For the winter of 2022/23, Scholz had repeatedly assured that there would probably be no shortage.
The Chancellor announced that he intends to press ahead with the construction of new LNG terminals in the coming year. And he hopes for further supply contracts. “The federal government is in constant contact with the gas importers and is also promoting the conclusion of long-term contracts,” he said. Most of the gas will come from Norway, the United States and the Gulf region, with a small portion from the Netherlands.
Scholz will open the first floating terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) on Saturday together with Economics Minister Robert Habeck and Finance Minister Christian Lindner in Wilhelmshaven, Lower Saxony. Others are being built in Brunsbüttel (Schleswig-Holstein), Stade (Lower Saxony) and Lubmin (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania). They are intended to help fill the gas supply gap that has arisen as a result of the extensive halt to Russian gas supplies to Germany. Before the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Germany got about 55 percent of its gas from Russia.
