All of a sudden, the power grid traffic light switched to red: even days later, this alarm signal in a new app caused more excitement than enlightenment in the southwest.

The transmission system operator Transnet BW wants to inform its customers in this digital way and called on Sunday to consume as little electricity as possible from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Uncertainty rose immediately: does that mean that there is a shortage of energy in Baden-Württemberg?

Are there bottlenecks in the southwest?

Is the energy crisis hitting now?

Helmut Buender

Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.

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Jan Hauser

Editor in Business.

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Gustave parts

Business correspondent in Stuttgart.

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To put your mind at ease: there was no failure.

The starting point for the excitement is in the app “Strom Thought” from Transnet BW.

The company wants to use it to control the electricity demand of consumers and reduce the costs for grid stabilization.

When the wind blows hard in the north, there is an oversupply of renewable energies there.

The grids are not sufficient to transport the electricity to the south.

Prices are falling on the electricity exchanges, so expensive conventional power plants in the south are no longer economical and are being shut down.

Reserve power plants are connected to the grid in the south, but they are not always sufficient.

Electricity then has to be imported from abroad.

If the population consumes less electricity during this period, the costs of this import fall.

"The supply was and is not unsafe"

This is exactly what the transmission system operator in Baden-Württemberg is all about: Transnet BW is expecting a lot of wind and a large amount of green electricity in the north on Sunday.

But since the power lines are not sufficient for transport to the south, expensive electricity for Baden-Württemberg has to be bought elsewhere.

Experts speak of a "redispatch" when power plants are supposed to increase or reduce output in order to counteract bottlenecks in the grid.

If less electricity is consumed during this period, the costs that consumers pay are also lower.

The electricity on Sunday evening came from Switzerland.

Energy expert Lion Hirth, professor at the private Hertie School in Berlin, sees this as a normal process.

"The supply was and is not unsafe," he says.

Such redispatch measures cost money because expensive power plants have to be started up and are unfavorable for the climate because renewable energies are generally not used.

"It is desirable that this is minimized, but it is not a threat." In general, he thinks it is wonderful what has happened in the energy supply in recent months: gas prices have fallen significantly, gas storage facilities are full and German coal-fired power plants are connected to the grid, while French nuclear power plants are running again.

"I haven't been as relaxed about the electricity and gas supply as I am today in ten months," he says.

Federal Network Agency praises Transnet BW

But nervousness in some households in the south-west increased on Sunday when the Transnet BW app went red.

The application showed the alarm for the second time.

Transnet BW, a subsidiary of the state-owned energy group ENBW, tried to resolve the confusion - and commented on Twitter: "There are no threats of bottlenecks."

It's all about "raising public awareness", the app signals "that we have to do more than usual" to keep the power grid stable.

And it shows the citizens that they can do something themselves.

The President of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, praised Transnet BW's appeal.

The app is an “opportunity to save money for all electricity users.

The fewer compensatory measures that have to be purchased, the less the network charges will increase," he wrote on Twitter.

But other tones can also be heard from the industry.

Consumers would be unnecessarily unsettled, giving the wrong impression that Germany had a supply problem, it said.

The problem is not the electricity supply, but the regional distribution.

The effort to keep the grids stable is increasing, and not only in the south-west.

With an increasing proportion of weather-dependent electricity from renewable energies and less nuclear energy, the fluctuations in load flows are increasing, so that grid operators have to intervene more frequently than before.

According to the network agency, in the first half of 2022 - there are no more recent figures - the costs were about as high as in the whole of 2021.