Challenges facing power stations in Germany's energy market

The need to revamp power plants is enormous. Many plants are outdated and no longer fulfil the requirements for sustainability, efficiency, flexibility and (supply) reliability that the market, politics and society demand. The implementation of new generation capacities is paving the way for greater competition, energy efficiency and decentralism in the energy sector and is offering the opportunity to actively shape the market.

Due to the considerable need to refurbish power plants combined with climate protection goals in Germany and Europe, the energy sector will have to master huge technical, strategical and financial challenges in order to guarantee reliable supply in Germany for the future.

The increase in electricity generated from renewable energy sources, the more extensive use of the potential offered by cogeneration and more widespread decentralism are not only stepping up demands on the expansion of electricity grids and their capacity to steer generation and load, they will in future also lead to conventional base-load and medium-load power stations having more load changes and much shorter use periods

Longer nuclear energy runtimes and carbon capture and storage are inclined to slow down the required system change.

Long-term investment in flexible, sustainable, reliable, low-carbon energy generation is urgently needed. It is the Stadtwerke, in particular, which have the opportunity in this market environment to strategically expand their own generation and hence diversify their procurement risk. They can also benefit from greater added value in their companies and, at the same time, help to implement climate protection goals and boost competition.

At the moment, however, new plant projects are entering into a hard-fought market due to low generation margins.