Create controllable power energy

As part of its growth package for the economy, the German government has presented a new power plant strategy. It is intended to create a framework for back-up power plants in the future energy system. The focus is on natural gas and hydrogen.

In order to ensure energy security in Germany, a certain contingent of electricity capacities must be available to cushion consumption peaks. After the coal phase-out and with the increasing share of volatile renewable electricity producers, other power plants will be needed that can take over this function. In the previous electricity system, the electricity required in these cases was either imported from European neighbors or produced by coal-fired power plants.

Since wind and PV systems often produce more power than is required selectively, electricity storage systems and other flexibility options will increasingly take on this reserve function in the future. The planned back-up power plants are to step in if more is consumed than wind and PV generate, not enough electricity is stored and no import is possible.

Installing controllable power

New power plants, modernizations and long-term storage facilities with a total capacity of 13 gigawatts (GW) are to be put out to tender. Capacity and distribution have already been agreed with the European Commission. New power plants account for 10.5 GW, modernizations two GW and storage facilities 500 megawatts (MW).

Half of the new power plants are to be pure gas-fired power plants and half are so-called H2-ready gas-fired power plants, which will be operated exclusively with hydrogen no later than eight years after construction. In addition, there are 500 GW of pure hydrogen power plants. The modernizations are aimed entirely at converting existing gas-fired power plants for hydrogen.

Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck sees the Power Plant Safety Act as the bridge to a comprehensive, technology-neutral capacity mechanism, which should also make use of demand flexibility and storage in particular. "In this way, we are making the electricity system fit for high shares of renewable energies and also providing additional protection for times of little wind and sun," says Habeck.

The planned capacity mechanism is a new element in the German electricity market and is not without controversy. To put it simply, a capacity market sells quantities of electricity that are held in reserve. At present, on the other hand, only quantities of electricity are sold on the market that have actually been generated and delivered. The purpose of a capacity market is to strengthen security of supply. What a capacity mechanism in Germany should look like will be discussed next autumn.

Natural gas, green and blue and hydrogen

Experts agree that the law is heading in the right direction, but also see deficits. It is particularly controversial that the potential of biogas plants has so far been ignored, while blue hydrogen is to be promoted.

"In principle, the decision of the federal government is a step in the right direction, because we need the limited expansion of controllable power. However, the power plant strategy must not become an economic stimulus package for fossil gas-fired power plants," says Sascha Müller-Kraenner, Managing Director of Deutsche Umwelthilfe. It is still unclear where the hydrogen for the power plants will come from. The fact that blue hydrogen may also be used in power plants from the eighth year after commissioning is a label fraud and a wrong decision.

Blue hydrogen is produced from natural gas, and the CO2 produced in the process must be captured and stored permanently. How, is currently still unclear.

Biogas flexibility option is not taken into account

Shortly after the first elements of the power plant strategy became known at the beginning of the year, the biogas industry called for biogas plants to be included in the expansion of power plants. Most of the infrastructure is already in place, and the power plants can step in flexibly if more electricity is needed. Bioenergy alone could provide twelve GW of controllable power in the short term by 2030 and even 24 GW by 2045 by increasing its output – and at significantly lower costs, according to Simone Peter, President of the German Renewable Energy Association (BEE).

"In times of tight budgets, the question arises as to why the BMWK does not design the law to be open to technology and not use cheaper options such as the construction of biogas plants or the integration of hydrogen via power-to-gas (synthetic natural gas, SNG) or also allow ammonia and SNG as hydrogen derivatives - precisely to cushion the risks of the delayed development of the hydrogen infrastructure and to keep costs in check," Michael Sterner, Professor and Head of the Research Centre for Energy Networks and Energy Storage FENES at the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg, comments on the strategy published at the beginning of July. Electricity from reserve power plants based on hydrogen is twice as expensive as biogas and more time-consuming and risky to implement. Sterner assumes that the output of biogas plants could be increased even faster than assumed by the BEE. So far, however, the EEG subsidy has not been sufficient for this. The potential of biogas could also be used as green hydrogen via the existing infrastructure, including gas storage facilities and gas-fired power plants.

"In the first European auction for green hydrogen, just such an SNG project with biogenic CO2 has the lowest differential and thus subsidy costs," explains Sterner. This shows that green gases such as SNG are a mature and cost-efficient technology. The same can be expected with ammonia. In the further design of the law, especially with regard to long-term storage, the focus should therefore be more on green hydrogen derivatives such as SNG (biomethane) and ammonia. The 2030 targets of climate neutrality, including the coal phase-out, could thus be achieved more cost-effectively, safely and quickly than via blue hydrogen. jb

source : Energy supply: Federal Government's power plant strategy - energiezukunft

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