POWER May 2013 - 50

ENERGY POLICY
Solutions are also being sought for insidious
and unexpected surges of wind power from
northern Germany that find a path of least resistance
to the power-hungry south through
circuitous routes via the grids of neighboring
Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
These " loop flows " have been blamed
for congestion of cross-border transmission capacity
and, worse, pose threats to the network
security conditions of Germany's neighbors,
the affected countries' grid operators said in a
March 2012 report. Recently, the German Institute
of Applied Ecology (Öko-Institut) said,
however, that it could not confirm those findings,
noting only that loop flows with Poland
exceeded 2.5 GW once, in 2011, when wind
production was between 4 GW and 8 GW.
Even so, France and the Netherlands have
already installed phase-shifting transformers
to redirect electricity by increasing transmission
resistance as a defense against loop
flows, and the Czech Republic and Poland
are reportedly considering the same. As some
experts point out, if its neighbors limit flows
during power surges, the grid stability problem
will be shifted back to Germany.
Seeking Future Solutions
Among Germany's efforts to secure a reliable
and affordable future energy supply is the adoption
of a new research program, which has earmarked
funding of roughly €3.5 billion through
2014-75% more than from 2006 to 2009-to
support development of sustainable energy
technologies. The funds are split among support
for nonnuclear energy technologies along
the entire energy chain, ranging from highefficiency
production in modern power plants,
decentralized energy systems, smart grids, and
storage modules to energy usage in energy-optimized
buildings and towns as well as efficient
industrial processes.
But even these efforts have been opposed
by critics, who say that though the technologies
or concepts funded are indeed achievable,
they are still far from being ready for
market. Hampered by excessive costs, their
operation could be delayed far beyond the
politically desired timeframe due to other
deficits, and they won't play an immediate
role in Germany's energy transformation.
A better investment would have been to open
up regenerative energy sources for heating markets
instead. " Solar heat and use of the Earth's
warmth should have been advocated more effectively,
yet this never came to pass. The use
of distant heat from the deep layers of the Earth
instead of the absurd unprofitable geothermal
power plants would have been far wiser. . . .
Available wind power in this country, where
the potential for pump storage is poor, should
be used solely to produce hydrogen which can
be used in return as fuel or as a chemical commodity, "
energy expert Dr. Günther Keil, asserts.
The bottom line is that " New installations
should be prohibited by law, or left to the laws
of the free markets, " he says.
A Costly Rebalancing
Ultimately, reforming and restructuring Germany's
energy sector by the end of the 2030s
could cost as much as €1 trillion, Environment
Minister Altmaier said in February
2013. Most of these costs are related to renewable
FITs, which could total some €680
billion by 2020-and increase if the market
price of power falls, he warned.
The cost implications are tremendous for
Germany, which has seen costs associated
with energy consumption double over the
past 12 years. Compared with €59 billion in
2000, energy spending spiked to €124 billion
in 2011-an increase of 20% over 2010. The
Economics Ministry blames higher energy
prices for primary energy resources in the
international commodity markets. But power
prices, central to the competitiveness of GerComprehensive
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POWER May 2013

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