Emergency transactions took place in the early hours of Sunday, Poland’s energetyka24.pl website reported, citing Germany’s Bild newspaper.
At 4 a.m., despite low demand, Germany had a power generation gap of 3 percent, according to energetyka24.pl.
It was filled by electricity bought from France’s nuclear energy system, Bild reported, as cited by energetyka24.pl.
The situation repeated itself at around 8 a.m., when some 2 percent of Germany’s energy demand was met by power supplied by France, energetyka24.pl reported.
Poland sends coal-fired energy to Germany
Poland also exported energy to Germany on Sunday as Berlin's decision makers were forced to fill the country’s power generation gap with electricity from the most emission-producing, coal-fired power plants in Poland, according to energetyka.pl.
Sunday’s shortage of domestically generated power was caused by adverse weather conditions in Germany, Bild reported, as cited by energetyka24.pl.
For these reasons, Germany’s wind turbines, which total around 30,000, worked at just around 11 percent of their capacity, while solar energy installations produced only 4.2 percent of their daily technical capacity, energetyka24.pl reported.
As a result, Germany imported a total of 6 GW of energy on Sunday, Bild estimated, as quoted by energetyka.pl.
It was not the first time this year that such a situation has occurred, either, according to the German newspaper.
On March 19, Germany was forced to import some 1.3 GW of energy to fully satisfy domestic demand, Bild reported, according to energetyka24.pl.
Shortage of power
Germany has phased out nuclear energy even as it seeks to wean itself off fossil fuels and manage an energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, France24 reported.
Research by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company suggests that shortage of power will be “far from a one-off occurrence” in Germany going forward, energetyka24.pl reported.
Experts warn that in the near future the country may experience difficulties in supplying sufficient amounts of energy during peak demand times, the Polish website noted.
According to estimates, the shortage will total 4 GW by 2025, and by 2030 the power generation gap will increase to 30 GW, energetyka24.pl reported.
Monday is day 418 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: energetyka24.pl, bild.de, France24, power-technology.com