09/20/2023
Source: Energy & Management Powernews
According to a study by the BEE association, the long-term scenarios of the BMWK significantly underestimate the performance of renewables. This could have serious consequences.
In its latest analysis, the German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE) expresses "urgent professional concerns" with regard to the renewable energies depicted in the long-term scenarios of the Federal Ministry of Economics (BMWK).
The long-term scenarios have been prepared on behalf of the BMWK since 2017 and are intended to provide "important guidance for the discussion on the further development of the energy transition," according to the relevant BMWK website.
According to the BEE, deviations in these scenarios "harbor the risk that political concepts based on them will become flawed." Among other things, the system development strategy, the Climate Neutral Electricity System platform and the distribution grids of the future are based on the assumptions of the long-term scenarios.
But in view of "considerable problems with regard to the renewable electricity generation identified," the scenarios in their current form should no longer serve as the basis for further studies or political decisions, demands BEE President Simone Peter. "It must be ensured that such an important baseline study does not produce any consequential errors." Therefore, she said, the BEE has decided to publish a background paper to initiate a discussion on the further development of the scenarios.
According to the analysis, the causes for the misestimation of the performance of renewables are manifold, but not systematically justified. For example, the scenarios went
- in the field of wind energy onshore assumes a best possible turbine configuration in 2040, which is significantly worse than today's state. Since 2012, there have already been new plants with a better configuration than the long-term scenarios up to and including 2040. In the past two years, he said, about 75 percent of all new plants have had a better plant configuration.
- in the area of offshore wind from a significantly too high utilization: For example, in the 2025 scenario year, more than 600 hours had load factors above 95 percent of rated capacity, although such high peak load factors had not occurred in a single hour in the past eight years. "In the following scenario years, offshore peak load factors even increase to more than 800 hours," the analysis says, "despite a massive expansion of offshore wind energy and an accompanying higher degree of shading due to wind farm density in the offshore area."
- in the field of photovoltaics from a dynamic peak capping, which is nothing more than a flat-rate deregulation at a utilization of about 50 percent of the nominal power (at the German level). Such a blanket derating is prohibited at EU level. In addition, this would also result in a constant feed-in of photovoltaics over several hours a day. This implies a flexibility that cannot be explained. In addition, net imports by Germany occur frequently in the time windows of the curtailment, in the scenario year 2025 even in more than 80 percent of the cases. This means that the long-term scenarios assume a shutdown of cheap electricity from renewable energies, while at the same time expensive, possibly not green, electricity quantities are imported from neighboring countries.
- in the field of biomass only from the availability of certain biomass assortments and fade out others completely. Thus one lowers artificially their potential. At the same time, the flexibility of bioenergy is unjustifiably greatly reduced compared to the previous long-term scenarios, which in turn leads to an increased need for power from H2 gas turbines.
- for hydro power from "completely wrong assumptions", which could be implemented neither technically nor practically with the power plant park in Germany.
According to the BEE, one had already communicated the technical concerns to the BMWK and the authors several times since the publication of the latest scenarios in 2021. The deviations had also been acknowledged, but a revision had so far failed to materialize.
The "Long-term scenarios and strategies for the expansion of renewable energies in Germany" are being prepared by a research consortium. It consists of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI), Consentec GmbH, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Heidelberg GmbH (ifeu), with the participation of subcontractors M-Five, the Vienna University of Technology, TEP Energy GmbH and GEF Ingenieur AG.
The full background paper is available on the BEE website.
Author: Katia Meyer-Tien
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