The electricity suppliers are asking the Free State to do more to expand hydropower. “After nuclear power has been phased out, hydropower is needed more than ever because it makes electricity available in a plannable manner,” says Detlef Fischer, Managing Director of the Association of Energy and Water Management in Bavaria (VBEW). “The state government must follow words with deeds.” Fischer alludes to statements by Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU), according to which water and solar energy play a more important role in renewable energies in Bavaria than wind power. Söder recently emphasized this in the dispute over wind power with the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Transition, Robert Habeck (Greens).
Although the expansion of wind power is stagnating, renewable energies are also becoming increasingly important in Bavaria. In 2018, these are the current figures, they covered 46 percent of the electricity requirement. With a 28.1 percent share of renewable energies, hydropower is in second place, behind photovoltaics (32.8 percent). Biomass (25.6 percent) and wind power (12.3 percent) follow in third and fourth place. Geothermal energy and other energy sources rank fifth with 1.2 percent. From the point of view of the VBEW, hydropower has great advantages. It is continuously available, can be used flexibly and – in the form of pumped storage systems – can store electricity. That is why it is central to the energy transition. However, the Free State does not do enough for them. The number of hydroelectric power plants has stagnated for 20 years. At the same time, more than 600,000 solar systems were connected to the grid.
Unlike solar power, hydropower is controversial among environmental groups. The vast majority of streams and rivers in Bavaria have been straightened, squeezed between dams and dikes or piped and massively damaged as a habitat for flora and fauna. Therefore, conservationists consider the potential of hydropower to be exhausted. They criticize the approximately 4,000 small and very small systems particularly sharply. They provide a fraction of the water flow, but are blamed for most of the damage to water bodies.