Germany is facing big flexibility challenge says Uniper’s Holger Kreetz

Uniper’s Chief Operating Officer Holger Kreetz pushes for a clear strategy for flexible power plants while decarbonising assets.

“Currently, you have 85GW in the German market contributing to flexibility, and last winter on the coldest day, the system needed 80GW. This translates into the challenge we will have.”

Holger Kreetz shared this observation in a discussion at Enlit Europe about the need to decarbonise power plants while ensuring the flexibility needed to keep the system functioning optimally. The challenge, according to Kreetz, is that a clear strategy for flexible power plants is needed.

However, in Germany, the industry is in limbo waiting for the carbon management strategy to be clarified.
Also, said Kreetz, we need to get flexibility online as soon as possible.

“The need for flexibility with more renewables, its lots of GW needed to be built and even if we had the details on the [flexibility] auction tomorrow, this would mean earliest in 2029 we would have the first assets up and running.”

Kreetz stated that the “German debate is not as rigorous as it has been in recent years,” even though this is clearly the most economical and suitable path to maximise asset value in the existing portfolio.

“To decarbonise [these] thermal assets, flexibility needs will increase rather than decrease…It’s a big challenge for society, OEMs and utilities.”

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Uniper’s decarbonisation progress

Uniper, Europe’s largest gas importer, is working to decarbonise its flexible assets while investing in renewable PPAs and growing its hydro portfolio.

This year the company took the first investment decision on a 30MW electrolyser project and signed a long-term offtake agreement with Total for the duration of the asset.

The plan is to convert gas-fired assets to green assets by 2035, and decarbonise UK assets by deploying CCS and shipping the carbon to the North Sea.

In terms of the coal-fired assets, Kreetz said that “if politically allowed, we will close the portfolio by 2029″.

“We tried to close the German assets earlier, but since the war [in Ukraine], there are a number of assets that have been entered back in the market for security of supply.”

Uniper is also in the process of converting to green fuels such as hydrogen. But, he added, running assets on hydrogen for long periods can be costly.

Kreetz made it clear that there is a fine balance between decarbonising flexible assets while continuing to rely on gas for energy security. It’s about maximising the existing assets on the path to net zero, he said.

Originally published on Enlit World