Brussels, 05/04/2012 (Agence Europe) - Commissioner Oettinger is advocating greater coordination of policies governing the expansion of the electricity transmission network in Germany, which has been experiencing problems since the scrapping of nuclear power and the integration of energy from wind turbines.
In an article for the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on 4 April, Commissioner Günther Oettinger said that, “the 16 energy programmes of Germany 's states do not take proper account of each other or of the Berlin government's policies”. He added that, “maybe it would be more prudent if a German network company, not necessarily state-owned, would take care of this, and with a clear network strategy”. Oettinger said that the cost of modernising the electricity transmission of electricity lines for channelling energy to the south of Germany, produced from wind turbines in the north of the country, could cost tens of billions of Euros over the next decade.
Since Germany's commitment in 2011 to shift much of its energy away from nuclear energy, major industrial regions in the south of the country, such as Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, are concerned that they will not be able to obtain enough electricity in difficult supply situations. Germany has experienced critical incidents this winter, when the wind energy produced in the north of the country could not be transported fast enough to the south due to bottlenecks in the network infrastructure. Oettinger emphasised that, “Sometimes, the power from northern wind parks travels through Polish and Czech networks to southern Germany. That is not ideal”.
In compliance with EU legislation requirements on the liberalisation of the energy market, which stipulates the unbundling of energy supply and networks, German energy companies E.ON, RWE and Vattenfall Europe have sold off their transition networks over the past ten years to GRT TenneT, Amprion GmbH and Elia respectively. The fourth major German operator, EnBW, intends to do likewise. (EH/trans.fl)