Current study
By Tesla and Co: Electricity consumption in the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region is set to double
The site of the future Tesla Gigafactory in Grünheide, Berlin-Brandenburg. The factory is expected to significantly increase the region’s electricity requirements in the future.
© Christophe Gateau / Picture Alliance
The Tesla Gigafactory and other industries in the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region will cause electricity demand to skyrocket in the future. According to a current study by the transmission system operator 50Hertz, the demand for electricity will even double in the next few years.
Thousands of new jobs, up to 500,000 electric cars per year: Tesla’s Gigafactory is in the starting blocks and is pursuing eager goals. However, the transformation of the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region into an industrial region will also have a significant impact on energy consumption.
In order for Tesla to be able to produce its Model Y in its first European plant in the future, significantly more electricity and water will be required than the region has consumed so far. According to a study commissioned by the transmission system operator 50Hertz, the demand for electricity in the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region will almost double by 2030.
The institutes Frontier Economics, IW Consult, PWC and the Research Center for Energy Economics in Munich have determined the future electricity and water requirements in the network area of the transmission system operator in two studies. The demand for electricity will therefore increase from around 103 terawatt hours (TWh) today to between 132 and 140 TWh by 2030. For comparison: Last year, the net electricity generation in all of Germany was 490 TWh.
Tesla & Co. make up the largest part of the increasing demand for electricity
Demand will increase particularly strongly in Berlin-Brandenburg, where electricity demand will increase by 14.3 TWh in 2030. In addition to Tesla – there has been a dispute between the US car manufacturer and environmentalists for some time about possible accidents and the water consumption of the car and battery factory – other new companies, such as the battery manufacturer Microvast, data centers from Microsoft Azure, Amazon and Google as well as supplier companies with 8.8 TWh from the largest part. Battery factories from CATL and Farasis are also to be built in the wider 50Hertz grid area.
Demand for faster power expansion
Stefan Kapferer, CEO of 50Hertz, spoke of the goal of climate neutrality as a “Herculean task”. “The expansion of renewable energies and the power grid infrastructure must progress faster than before,” said Kapferer in a press release. However, East Germany has “very good prerequisites for writing a success story for the conversion to a climate-neutral industrial region”.
According to the study, the demand for hydrogen will also increase – from around 0.5 TWh today to up to 7 TWh in 2030. This is mainly due to the chemical and steel industries. And for the coming decade, the study predicts another sharp increase. This would then have to be increasingly covered by imports.
Nevertheless, the result of the study sounds hopeful. Finally, she rates north-east Germany “as an excellent location for climate-neutral industries”. The explanation for this lies not only in the relatively large number of free spaces and subsidy programs, but also in the quite large share of renewable energies in electricity consumption. It is currently around 60 percent – almost 20 percent above the national average in 2021 – and is at a further increasing level.
Sources: 50 Hertz, Handelsblattwith material from the DPA