vgbe energy journal 10 (2022) - International Journal for Generation and Storage of Electricity and Heat

Future-proof, secure and climate-friendly electricity supply in Germany
outside the holiday season), is around
80 GW. According to the Federal Network
Agency, the maximum load in 2021 was
reached on 30 November in the period 11:45
– 12:00 with a total of 81,368 MW. In 2020,
the peak load was 79,480 MW on 3 December
at 17:45 – 18:00. However, this ‘load
measurement’ based on hourly production
data from the TSOs is not complete for Germany.
The reason for this are industrial
power plants whose production is not fed
into the public grid. Estimates put the missing
quantities at 5-10 % of the hourly measured
demand, so that the actual peak load is
currently around 85 GW.
The security of supply is determined by the
extent to which electricity generation capacity
can be assumed to be reliably available at
the time of the peak load.
The share of secured capacity in installed
capacity varies for the different technologies.
For plants based on nuclear energy,
hard coal, lignite and natural gas, more than
90 % of the installed capacity can be classified
as secured 19 . At the other end of the
spectrum is photovoltaics (PV). The PV capacity
available at the time of the expected
peak load should be assumed to be zero,
since in Germany the peak load typically occurs
at a time when it is dark. The situation
is more favourable for wind energy – this applies
in particular to offshore plants. However,
it cannot be ruled out that there is a
wind lull at the time of the highest load
(F i g u r e 10 ). For this reason, the European
Network of Transmission System Operators
for Electricity ENTSO-E, for example,
sets the share of secured capacity in installed
capacity at