“How difficult grid expansion is going to be”

Placing Germany’s planned power transmission lines below ground will require a massive material and political effort, Andreas Macho writes in WirtschaftsWoche. The exact location of the two transmission lines SuedLink and SuedOstLink, which are supposed to transfer wind power over hundreds of kilometres from northern Germany to industrial centres in the south, has not even been decided, Macho says. “But the problems that companies will encounter when implementing this mega-project are beginning to show already”, he argues. Getting the cables that weigh up to 100 tonnes in remote areas of the country and into their trenches might even require “a revamp of the road network”, transmission grid operator Tennet told the paper. Construction will also drastically affect land owners’ property, which will require close involvement of citizens and also compensation payments “to appease protesters more quickly”, Macho says.

Read the article in German here.

See the CLEW dossier The energy transition and Germany’s power grid for more information.