The Federal Network Agency does not expect problems with the power supply in the coming winter half-year 2023/24. “The power supply next winter is as secure as we have been used to for many years,” said the President of the Authority, Klaus Müller, according to a statement. The challenge for system stability is not a so-called dark lull, but a situation with high consumption in the south and a lot of renewable generation in the north due to insufficient grid expansion. “This shows once again that rapid grid expansion is essential for the energy transition and increases grid security.”
On Friday, the network agency confirmed the so-called network reserve for the coming winter, which had previously been determined by the transmission system operators. Accordingly, a need for reserve power plants with a total capacity of 4616 megawatts was reported. Power plants in the grid reserve are intended to help prevent overloads in the transmission grid. In the event of an impending bottleneck, generation plants are scaled down or switched off before the grid bottleneck occurs. At the same time, reserve power plants are being ramped up in the south, where the electricity is needed.