As a result of the reduced gas supplies from Russia, natural gas has become scarce in Europe.

This has an impact on the German power supply, as part of the electricity generated domestically comes from gas-fired power plants - in 2021 15.2 percent.

In addition, temporary failures of French nuclear power plants and a possible limited availability of hard coal power plants make the situation more difficult.

The latter is due to the low water situation in the Rhine and Neckar and a lack of exports from Poland.

For this reason, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) commissioned the four regional transmission system operators 50Hertz, Amprion, Tennet and Transnet BW to carry out a special analysis with a focus on winter 2022/2023.

The recently presented study deals with the question of the power balance, i.e. whether the electricity demand for this winter is covered at all times, and with grid security, i.e. whether the electricity generated can also be transported to the consumers without overloading the grid .

To estimate the power generated by renewable energies for this winter, the study authors used weather data from 2012.

They are therefore assuming the “worst-case scenario”, since the lowest temperatures in the past ten years were measured in February that year.

Possible changes in consumer behavior due to high energy prices were not taken into account in the study.

In their analysis, the authors also identified the measures known as “redispatch” that are necessary to prevent the electricity grid from being overloaded and to maintain grid stability.

If, for example, there is a bottleneck in the power grid, the output of some power plants is reduced beforehand, which is referred to as negative redispatch.

Other power plants are switched on or ramped up after the bottleneck as a "positive redispatch".

This situation occurs in Germany, for example, when the many wind farms on the North Sea coast produce a lot of electricity and this has to be transported to where demand is greatest, for example in the direction of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.

Then the electricity feed-in has to be throttled in the north and increased in the south.

Such an increase occurs in particular by ramping up thermal power plants.

This so-called grid reserve of flexible, ready-to-operate power plants prevents grid bottlenecks and covers demand in the short term.

Four scenarios for the winter

In total, the network operators have simulated four scenarios: In the first scenario, there is never a so-called load undersupply in Germany, even without nuclear power plants.

This means that the demand for electricity is always covered.

The authors of the study assume the most favorable case.

They assume that the lignite and coal-fired power plants can supply 6.1 gigawatts of power and that the gas-fired power plants in southern Germany and Austria can supply electricity without restriction.

A possible reduction in output of the coal-fired power plants of two gigawatts is also included.

In this simulation, the gas power plants can compensate for the lack of feed-in from the wind farms when there is no wind.

More than ten gigawatts of power is available on twelve days during the winter months.

The maximum power requirement occurs in the study in February 2023.

In this month, the heat requirement covered by gas would also be the highest, which presupposes a secure gas supply.