By P Gosselin
Germany’s gasoline reserves are emptying at file velocity: 1% per day as the present wind/photo voltaic vitality lull means extra gasoline will get burned for electrical energy, heating.
Picture: cropped right here.
Pleiteticker.de right here experiences how Germany’s pure gasoline reserves “are emptying at file velocity” as a result of wind and solar energy have been on the scarce aspect over the previous few weeks. This implies gasoline generators have needed to leap in to select up the slack in electrical energy manufacturing – not one the German authorities had hoped because it wrestles with the heightening vitality disaster.
“Germany is changing gasoline into electrical energy in file portions,” pleiteticker.de experiences. “Due to excessive stress system ‘Erika’, the present December is colder than it has been for years. […] In latest days, gasoline storage amenities have subsequently been emptying a lot quicker than earlier than. From December 12 onwards, multiple % was withdrawn from gasoline storage amenities in Germany day by day.”
“Final week, virtually one third of all electrical energy was generated from pure gasoline. These are file figures,” writes pleiteticker.de.
If the chilly persists by means of the winter, gasoline reserves threaten to grow to be extraordinarily tight earlier than spring arrives.
However as an alternative of blaming the vitality woes on failed authorities insurance policies, federal community company head Klaus Müller criticizes the state of affairs on the customers, and worries “the gasoline storage could not final the entire winter.”
“A nationwide gasoline scarcity in winter might be prevented if, firstly, the financial savings goal of no less than 20 % continues to be achieved,” the Federal Community Company says. Right here the federal government’s answer clearly is that residents ought to settle for freezing much more when it’s bitterly chilly out.
Over 800 million euros paid for unproduced vitality in 2021
The issue with wind energy is that both an excessive amount of or too little is produced, because of the climate. As talked about above. the previous weeks have seen little wind energy being produced, and so gasoline generators needed to be fired as much as hold the grid equipped.
However when it’s too windy, one thing must be completed to maintain the grid from being overloaded: wind generators should be shut down. That’s costing Germans 807 million euros this 12 months as a result of the surplus electrical energy that would have been fed into the grid by the wind parks legally needs to be compensated.
Pleiteticker right here writes: “For the quantity of electrical energy that the operators might have fed into the grid, they nonetheless obtain compensation from the grid operators in line with the statutory tariffs. And this sum is increased than ever this 12 months: 807 million euros. File worth. For electrical energy that by no means existed.”
And the issue is getting larger, in line with the Federal Ministry of Economics.
“On the time of the worst vitality disaster Germany has seen in a very long time, when firms and customers are hammered by vitality costs like hardly ever earlier than, Germany is paying cash for vitality that additionally doesn’t get produced,” feedback pleiteticker.de.
Up to now Germany’s response to the vitality disaster is plans to construct many extra generators, with talks of even tripling its present put in capability, which in fact would solely triple grid volatility, thus making it much more unstable than it already is and so create a fair a lot larger mess.
