Contingency plans from utilities: Prepared for the third Corona winter

Winter is just around the corner – and with it the next wave of Corona. How are critical infrastructure companies preparing for the coming cold season?

A huge, green glowing monitor wall. On it in white, green, blue, orange and red circuits, symbols, numbers and diagrams. In front of the wall, five men in front of other monitors: the control center in the Cottbus combined heat and power plant. It depends on him. From here they control the five gas engines of the power plant and thus ensure that more than 82,000 households in the Brandenburg city have sufficient electricity and heat. So, critical infrastructure. If possible, no one should fail here. The control center must be manned around the clock. Even in Corona times.

They have a good 100 technicians for the control station. And at the moment there are only a few cases of corona infection, says Vlatko Knezevic from Stadtwerke Cottbus, which operates the thermal power station. However, if the number of cases increases again, they would have to have more tests again and introduce a mask requirement. Because: From six simultaneous cases “it becomes critical”, according to the managing director of the public utility company.

Focus on the core business

The initial situation has relaxed compared to 2020, according to the association of municipal companies. The VKU represents over 1,500 municipal utilities and municipal companies in the fields of energy, water, sewage, waste management and telecommunications. “If the situation should deteriorate, the municipal companies are as well prepared as possible,” said the association. There are now emergency plans to protect the approximately 300,000 employees in the municipal economy from illness and quarantine, to precisely assess personnel requirements and to focus on the core business. All of this with the aim of being able to provide people and the economy with safe care – even during waves of illness.

In the Cottbus thermal power station, for example, they have long since developed well-established procedures for protection against infection: A so-called “free reporting point” in front of the control center for employees who have not been on duty for a long time. Or fixed teams for different shifts that should not meet, so that in an emergency only as few as possible are infected at once. There are also strict access restrictions and forced ventilation for the control room. “You have to imagine that everything we have in terms of critical infrastructure converges at these places.” Home office is not possible there, says Knezevic.

When home office is not an option

Home office is also not an option for many employees at BVG, the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe. Anyone driving the big yellow buses through Berlin, for example, has to be among people. The BVG, which describes itself as Germany’s largest local transport company, counted more than 700 million passenger journeys in 2021, and more than 15,000 employees keep the capital mobile. Line 100 is particularly popular with tourists: Zoologischer Garten, Victory Column and Bellevue Palace, Bundestag, Brandenburg Gate and Staatsoper Unter den Linden. For Berliners, however, the BVG with its buses, underground and trams is much more: it is often the means of transport of choice on the way to work, to go shopping, to events or to meet friends. In short: For many, everyday life is inconceivable without it.

In order to be able to continue to serve all lines and stops of the bus network in the future, the BVG has decided to slightly restrict traffic on certain routes. It is mainly about lines on which there is an express line and a “normal” line parallel. According to the BVG, this was already the case during the “summer wave” – ​​because at the time, in addition to the corona pandemic, the tense labor market situation in the capital was also putting pressure on the staffing level of the transport companies. The measures from the summer will continue to apply in autumn and winter for the time being. There will be no further adjustments for the time being.

A little longer waiting for the subway

As early as January, the BVG had to restrict its timetable offer – at that time by 4.8 percent of trips, due to increasing cases of sick leave and quarantine. At that time, lines with parallel services in particular were thinned out in the bus network in order to be able to serve the network as a whole. “Berlin can rely on the BVG,” said Operations Director Rolf Erfurt at the time. According to the BVG, passengers on the subway would have had to wait a maximum of one minute longer for their train than usual; in tram traffic, 2 out of 22 lines were affected by larger cycle intervals. The Berlin transport companies therefore see themselves well prepared for the coming Corona winter.

They also look forward to the coming months in the Cottbus combined heat and power plant with the strictly shielded control center with its large, green, glowing monitor wall. The past corona waves have already survived quite well and are prepared, says Stadtwerke boss Knezevic. The energy and heat supply is secured.