Physical limits reached

E.ON chief: ‘Germany must slow down pace of energy transition’

'Extra windturbines leveren volgens E.ON nauwelijks nog voordeel op, terwijl de kosten blijven stijgen.' Foto: Shutterstock

The top executive of E.ON, the German parent company of Essent and Energiedirect.nl, believes Germany should slow down the pace of wind and solar energy expansion. According to Leonard Birnbaum, Germany’s power grids can hardly keep up with the rapid growth of new renewable energy projects. He said this in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, ANP reported.

Birnbaum describes a situation reminiscent of the overloaded Dutch power grid. According to him, Germany’s electricity system is reaching its physical limits in several regions. He stresses that costs are rising for households as grid operators are forced to offer financial compensation to wind and solar farms that have to be switched off. In the Netherlands, grid operators were last week taken to task by Authority Consumer & Market for being too slow to solve the grid congestion problem.

“Renewables have won – they already supply more than 60 per cent of our electricity,” Birnbaum said. “At this point, it no longer makes sense to massively subsidise new capacity, especially if an additional wind turbine adds cost but provides little benefit.”

‘Growing concerns’

According to the ANP, growing concerns about Germany’s energy transition highlight growing concerns as grid congestion increases, switch-off costs run into billions and factories struggle to get connections in time. Birnbaum says he expects power and gas prices in the country to fall next year, helped by government subsidies. But he warns that policy changes are needed to keep the system reliable.

Apart from the new renewable energy projects, Germany will also continue to rely on fossil generation at times when energy demand peaks or when wind and solar power are scarce due to weather. This dependence has grown stronger since the country closed its last nuclear power plants in 2023.

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This article was automatically translated from the Dutch language original to English (British).

Author: Nina Koelewijn

Source: MobilityEnergy.com

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