Germany expects 4,400km grid expansion as DSOs plan regionally for first time

As the Federal Network Agency hopes to expand the grid in Germany by 4,400km by the end of 2025, the country’s distribution system operators (DSOs) have for the first time published estimates for future electricity generation and consumption, as well as expected grid connections.

For the transmission grid in Germany to accommodate the energy transition, it needs to be massively expanded. Specifically, it needs 14,000km of expanded, high-voltage lines.

This is according to the German Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur), which is responsible for managing 7,400km of this total and is expecting to provide approvals for 4,000km of transmission line upgrades by 2025.

Specifically, by June this year, the Agency had already completed planning approval processes for 440km of high voltage lines, with 2,800km expected to be issued by the end of 2024 for the total 4,400km expected by mid-2025.

Regional planning

Announcement of the Agency’s expected approvals was made the same week as BDEW, the German Association for energy and water companies, announced a first for the country’s DSOs.

To coordinate network consumption management, six planning regions in the country have been defined, namely for the Nord, Mitte, Ost, West, Bayern and Südwest regions of the country; each region consists of one, two at most, network operators.

Regional scenarios were created based on the plans of the TSOs, in which the DSOs describe the probable development of electricity generation and consumption within their planning region.

These scenarios are updated every two years and serve as the basis for the creation of network expansion plans of the individual DSOs, which will be published by April 30, 2024, recurring every two years.

“The distribution network operators are faced with a mammoth task,” explained Kerstin Andreae, chair of the BDEW executive board in a press release. “Renewable energies will continue to be massively expanded and are expected to increase their share of the electricity supply from around 50 to 80% over the next seven years.”

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Renewables and the call for digitisation

According to the BDEW, when placing each regional scenario side by side and adding up the numbers, the nationwide installed capacity of photovoltaic systems, for example, will triple from the current 55GW to over 164GW by 2028 alone. By 2033, capacity will increase to almost 276GW and will reach almost 453GW in 2045.

And although these renewable forecasts are on the target path of the German Renewable Energy Sources Act, this exponentially increasing renewables capacity means that the grid will need to be better coordinated and upgraded.

When announcing their grid expansion plans for Germany, the Federal Network Agency stated how from mid-2024, the number of permits that are accepted are expected to increase significantly, especially for projects such as SuedLink, which German TSO TransnetBW’s COO Michael Jesberger has described as the biggest project of its kind in the country.

SuedLink will see a 750km HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) link provide 4GW of transmission capacity. The link will be commissioned in 2028, said Jesberger.

Added Andreae: “By 2030, 15 million electric cars will be driving on German roads and more and more heat pumps will be installed in homes. All of these new producers, consumers and storage facilities must first be connected to the electricity distribution grid and then intelligently integrated into the electricity system.

“This can only be achieved with the expansion and digitisation of the distribution grids. The regional scenarios make the magnitude of the challenge clear. The expansion and conversion of the networks requires investments in the billions,” she states.

“The network operators are facing up to this challenge, but they need an appropriate regulatory framework to do so. In addition, there is a need for sufficiently qualified specialists, secure supply chains and a noticeable streamlining and digitisation of bureaucratic processes.”

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A week prior to the announcements from the BDEW and the Federal Network Agency, the Federal Government website reiterated efforts to speed up the installation of smart electricity meters, due to their capability in enabling energy efficiency and relieving strain from the grid.

Said Robert Habeck, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection: “The expansion of renewable energies, the greater use of electric cars in the transport sector and heat pumps in buildings require intelligent linking of electricity generation and consumption.

“Our future energy system will become much more flexible and therefore also more complex, and for this we need smart meters and a digitisation of the energy transition.”