No shortages, but supplies necessary

Power supply in Germany in 2025 will be ensured, but southern Germany will be dependent on the provision of assured capacity from northern Germany and abroad in critical situations. This was the tenor of a study commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment, Climate Protection and the Energy Sector Baden-Wuerttemberg, which was produced by the Institute of Energy Economics and the Rational Use of Energy (IER) as well as the Institute of Combustion and Power Plant Technology (IFK) of the University of Stuttgart and the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

Based on a study already produced a few years ago and combined with an update of the data base, the partners investigated the extent to which a reliable power supply in southern Germany will be guaranteed by 2025. The study evaluates the security of supply on the basis of the conventional and renewable power plants in place as well as the current regulatory framework.

The decommissioning of conventional power plants and the expansion of renewable energies were also taken into account. The experts analyzed four different weather and load variants — each in the event that conventional power plants are shut down after their expected service life, as well as in the event of an accelerated fossil fuel phase-out. The proposals of the coal commission have not yet been taken into account in the study, but can be covered by the assumed scenarios.

The results show that the foreseeable development of generating capacity in Germany and the neighboring European countries in situations critical for power coverage is not expected to result in a supply shortage. However, southern Germany will be increasingly reliant on assured capacity from northern Germany and neighboring countries. In 2025 this will also apply to Germany as a whole, which will then depend on power from abroad in the event of shortages. Increasing capacity or network reserves would reduce this effect. In principle, a fossil fuel phase-out, as proposed by the German government commission, appears to be still manageable in 2025 with imports from abroad or increased reserves with a view to ensuring the provision of generating capacity in the scenarios studied.

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