It is about: the fear of a large-scale power failure lasting several days.

According to the current trend radar from the software specialist Lexware, more than a third of the self-employed and small companies surveyed fear that they will not get enough energy in winter.

Only 20 percent have a contingency plan in case gas is restricted, but 75 percent have already started to reduce their energy use.

Markus Fruehauf

Editor in Business.

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But how many companies have already dealt with a major power outage remains unknown.

Although Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz considers such a blackout to be unlikely, the current report on the stress test of the German transmission system operators states: "In all three scenarios considered, the supply situation in the coming winter half-year is extremely tense - in Europe, the load cannot be fully covered in the electricity market .”

The Austrian blackout expert Herbert Saurugg draws attention to this in an interview with the FAZ.

The former Major in the Austrian Armed Forces is President of the Society for Crisis Prevention and a regular contact in the media of the neighboring country as an expert for security of supply.

And he has been warning of the blackout scenario for a long time, especially since this would be associated with dangerous interruptions in the supply of food or in the sewage sector.

He not only sees the current stress test on German security of supply as a confirmation of his previous assessment: unfortunately, it has also been strengthened.

In principle, everyone still assumed that a critical power shortage should be manageable with a planned power cut.

"From my daily work, I assume that very few actors are neither aware nor aware of the consequences of such a planned large-scale shutdown."

Existing security systems are not sufficient

If – as is currently becoming apparent – ​​power cuts might become necessary in several countries at the same time, nobody would know how such a complex system would then behave and whether these measures would remain manageable.

The existing security systems would not be installed for such a situation.

“Therefore, there is a very concrete blackout threat that we should take seriously.

It's not about whether the event really happens, but that we are not prepared for it and the damage would be immense."

The war in Ukraine, climate change and drought added unexpected stress factors, and even without these, the problems would have increased significantly.

Saurugg is worried about the increasing number of short-term plan changes because they cannot be implemented at this speed in reality and no impact and side effect assessments are carried out, if this is still possible at all.

Already foreseeable ten years ago

According to him, the problems were roughly foreseeable ten years ago.

The blackout expert considers the fundamental problems to be one-sided and unsystematic business optimization, the reduction of all fallback levels, reserves and redundancies, and an unrealistic energy transition without regard to physics and technical framework conditions.

Here he refers to the non-existent storage and network capacities, which are required in particular for wind and solar energy, which is prone to fluctuations.

Saurugg criticizes the energy transition in Germany because, according to him, ideological and technical changes have been promoted here.

In his view, Germany is not prepared for a major blackout in almost any area.

That could have catastrophic effects.

"The issue of prevention has always been ridiculed or equated with right-wing preppers," says Saurugg.

Therefore, the broad masses have no precautions.

According to him, the black start, i.e. until large parts of Germany can be supplied with electricity again, is expected to last a week.

In this context, Saurugg also criticizes the liberalization of the electricity market, since since then only business optimization has counted.

"In the meantime, almost all of the excess generation capacity that existed 20 years ago has been reduced." As a result, there is hardly any buffer left to react to unforeseen events.

For Saurugg, the current turmoil on the electricity market is just a symptom of the expected shortage.

In the short to medium term, Saurugg no longer sees a chance to change anything because far-reaching changes would be necessary for the already very fragile situation.

In the short term, the escalations would have to be stopped and the causes tackled at the same time: a lack of reliable generation capacities, storage facilities and lines.