The project is necessary due to the high amount of electricity generated from PV systems

04/17/2023

Source: Energy & Management Powernews

The Bavarian regional network operator reports record investments and progress in its largest new cable construction project.

Round 1,600 pages and 200 plans comprise the application for planning approval, which Bayernwerk Netz GmbH has now submitted to the Government of Upper Bavaria. It is the next step on the way to building an 18-kilometer high-voltage line that will relieve the grid in the Dachau district in the future and create more capacity for feeding renewable energies into the grid, according to a company statement. According to a company spokesman, it is the grid operator's largest cable project.

The 110 kV line is expected to be laid as an underground cable between the Kleinschwabhausen substation, which was newly built in 2019, and the existing Oberbachern substation from the beginning of 2024. Commissioning is planned for mid-2025 (we reported).

However, the project, whose investment volume is estimated at around 30 million euros, has not gone entirely smoothly so far: on the one hand, there have been "internal planning difficulties". On the other hand "in individual cases need for discussion existed with the landowners and/or land managers concerned by the planning, so the speaker of the Bayernwerk net on inquiry of the editorship, why the binding of the Kleinschwabhausener transformer station to the high voltage net takes place only several years after its completion.

"Doubts and skepticism" gave it, so the speaker. However, these had been clarified in talks, so that at least the preliminary investigations for the project could be carried out. Parallel to the planning approval process, compensation negotiations with those affected are now to take place starting in May. One assumes to be able to agree with the land owners and users and to keep the further schedule, so the speaker.

Investments of 750 million euro planned

According to Bayernwerk, the project is necessary because of the high amount of locally generated electricity from photovoltaic plants in the districts of Dachau, Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm and Aichach-Friedberg. The electricity generated here often exceeds the amount purchased by consumers locally and should therefore be fed into the grid, distributed or transported away supraregionally.

A challenge that Bayernwerk Netz faces not only in the Dachau district. More than 390,000 decentralized feed-in plants, mostly photovoltaic, are already integrated into the grid, so that Bayernwerk already distributes over 70 percent renewable electricity. And the number of connection requests for renewable energy systems continues to rise: overall, the number of monthly requests to Bayernwerk has doubled from 3,000 to 6,000 applications per month - and the trend is still rising.

In order to meet this development and the simultaneously rising demands on the supply side due to electromobility and data centers, Bayernwerk Netz, as Bavaria's largest distribution network operator, has to maintain, modernize and expand the networks. For 2023, the company is therefore planning a record investment volume totaling 750 million euros. In the period 2021 to 2024, Bayernwerk Netz expects a total investment volume of around 2.9 billion euros.

Author: Katia Meyer-Tien