The Heyden 4 coal-fired power station should actually have gone offline in these days.

Its operator Uniper had successfully applied for compensation.

But the Federal Network Agency vetoed the shutdown because otherwise there would be bottlenecks in the power supply.

Heyden 4 will remain a reserve power station for a while so that the lights do not go out when there is little wind or sunshine.

Like a number of other coal-fired kilns, it no longer participates in the electricity market, but is ready to deliver at the command of the network operator in critical phases.

Niklas Záboji

Editor in business.

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    This separately regulated back-up stocking costs a lot of money. The consumer pays for this via the network charges. That may seem absurd, because on the one hand politics is promoting the advance of renewable energies, on the other hand it is safeguarding it with particularly climate-damaging coal-fired power plants. In addition to solar cells and wind turbines, aren't storage systems now so cheap that almost full supply of green electricity is only a matter of time? Won't the foreign countries produce more for the local market, for example through the significantly more profitable wind power from Denmark or hydropower from Norway? And are the high prices on the electricity market in the remaining dark lulls not enough of an incentive for market participants toto invest in gas-fired power plants that are easy to ramp up and down? These could be operated with an ever higher proportion of “green” hydrogen, so not necessarily to

    become stranded assets

    .

    Yes and no, say experts who deal with the optimal design of markets. They include the Cologne-based behavioral economists Axel Ockenfels and Peter Cramton, as well as Steven Stoft from Berkeley. Together they wrote a much-cited paper a few years ago, outlining the advantages of a capacity market. In such a system, power plant operators are remunerated according to competitive rules of the game for the ability and willingness to reliably generate electricity even in stressful situations - instead of, as in Germany currently, only for the electricity actually produced and otherwise, like Heyden 4, in a network that is difficult to understand even for experts Network reserve and capacity reserve, security readiness and so-called special network equipment, all of which are outside the market.

    Hardly anyone is building new gas-fired power plants

    One reason is market failure: "In normal times, when the supply situation is good, the electricity price is too low to ensure security of supply in times of crisis," says economist Ockenfels.

    Only when electricity generation is barely sufficient to cover the traditionally inflexible demand will the price reach a level that makes the operation of even the last gas-fired power plant needed economically.

    However, in these very rare extreme situations, the electricity price is often "massively distorted" by regulatory interventions and strategic behavior on the part of market participants, he says. The price does not reflect the scarcity in a reasonable way. When the need is greatest and there is even a power outage due to a lack of power plants, there is no longer any price on the market. Under these conditions, hardly anyone voluntarily maintains a power plant only for critical phases. There is a risk that too little generation capacity will be available in the dark and generally in extreme situations. That was seen in Texas last winter.