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Analysis of Power Station Planning in Germany to 2020.

dena updated its "Analysis of Power Station Planning in Germany to 2020" in autumn 2009. Germany continues to face an efficiency gap because the investments being made in modern fossil fuel-fired power stations are not sufficient to meet annual peak load in 2020 reliably, safely, economically and sustainably. If power demand declines, the calculated efficiency gap for 2020 is around 10,600 MW, or around 14,200 MW if power demand remains constant.

High efficiency power stations must be built.

In comparison with spring 2008, the outlook for the construction of new fossil fuel-fired power stations has become even less optimistic. The dena study moreover reveals that, against the background of the current expansion of combined heat and power capacity, their share of electricity generation will probably not rise to 25 percent by 2020.

dena has carried out investigations into which new power stations are planned in Germany up to 2020, how likely they are to be constructed, trends in power demand and the associated peak load and what confirmed power generation capacity is available to meet this peak load. Two scenarios were considered, namely "falling power demand" and "constant power demand".

If no further high efficiency power stations are built, inefficient fossil fuel-fired power stations with elevated CO₂ emissions will have to remain in operation for longer.
Power station operators will have to purchase more emission certificates, power supplies will remain short and power prices will rise. Importing power from foreign countries is not a feasible alternative because European capacity is not sufficient to meet Germany's demand.

If an efficiency gap is to be avoided, flexible and intelligent solutions must be found for an energy system in flux. These include:

Provision of reliable and economical installed power generation capacity based on an efficient combination of centralised and decentralised generation technologies,
New construction of high efficiency fossil fuel-fired power stations, further expansion of CHP capacity and support for the development of renewable energy sources,
Development of power grid capacity for the transmission of power from northern Germany to the load centres in the south,
Load management and storage: increasing flexibility in the energy system thanks to a greater time offset between power generation and power demand,
using new technologies in conjunction with Smart Meters/Smart Grids for demand-side and supply-side system optimisation.

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Article published in Handelsblatt, 07.02.2010 External link