According to leaked plans from the German federal network agency, published on Tuesday in the
Süddeutsche Zeitung, the government has had to halve its original target for expanding its windfarms in the gale-beaten northern flatlands because it cannot extend its power grid quickly enough to the energy-hungry south.
When
Angela Merkel announced in May 2011 that Germany would seek to phase out its fleet of nuclear reactors by 2022, questions arose as to whether renewable sources of energy, such as wind or solar, could grow quickly enough to meet the requirements of German industry.
Yet five years later, windfarms in the northernmost states are producing so much energy that in some cases the state has to pay renewable energy companies to switch off their turbines to stop congesting the power grid.
In theory, the manufacturing sector in southern states like Bavaria or Baden-Württemberg would be supplied with green energy from the north. But plans for an ambitious north-south “energy highway” between Schleswig-Holstein and Bavaria have stalled, due in part to local protests against proposed “monster pylons”.
Revised plans for more costly underground cabling were
signed off last October, but the project now runs approximately a year and a half behind its original schedule, leaving Germany’s energy infrastructure lop-sided.
In 2015, northern Germany produced 4,100 gigawatt hours in excess energy which couldn’t been transported to the south – enough, in theory, to supply 1.2 million households with energy for a year.
Germany takes steps to roll back renewable energy revolution
Texas had a similiar problem, and solved it. The US has a very large problem because the best wind and solar areas do not have grids. In a heavily populated nation such as Germany, putting in a new grid is even more complex.
