THE POWER GRID OF THE 21ST CENTURY

"The power grid of the future will help protect the climate," says Sven Teske, a graduate engineer and energy expert from Greenpeace International. "The technology is already available today and the lie about the power gap is a fairy tale of energy companies. In order to combine solar systems on houses, offshore wind in the North Sea and desert power for Europe to create a safe, CO2-free power supply, the EU-wide power grid just has to be will be expanded by around four percent. In return, we would be independent of coal, gas and uranium imports in the future. " Numerous measures such as load control, improved weather forecasts and energy storage methods are already available today.

According to the Greenpeace study, intelligent networks can also cope with rare extreme weather situations with very high wind or solar intensity with low consumption (summer) or little sun and wind with high consumption (winter).

The different network types such as micro-grids (e.g. settlement networks) and super-grids (overland connections) must be harmoniously combined so that a constant system balance can take place. Around 6,000 kilometers of new cables have to be laid across the EU and a further 6,000 kilometers of cable between Europe and Africa. Around 10,000 kilometers of cables have to be technically upgraded in Europe. In order to avoid lengthy legal disputes with residents, underground cables should be used in the vicinity of settlements instead of overhead lines. The modernization of the networks requires investments totaling around 209 billion euros by 2050, which is around 5 billion euros annually. When applied to the electricity price, this means additional costs of 0.15 cents per kilowatt hour, i.e. less than 1 percent.

"The German government urgently needs to accelerate the grid conversion for the further expansion of renewable energies," says Andree Böhling, energy expert from Greenpeace Germany. "In addition, the transmission grids must be transferred to an independent Netz AG with state participation in order to dissolve the blockades of the energy companies."

BATTLE OF THE GRIDS (REPORT 2011)