Ed Miliband handed brutal net zero warning after Germany fiasco | Politics | News

Bottlenecks in Germany’s energy system should act as a warning for Ed Miliband and his clean power ambitions, experts have said.

Issues with Germany’s electricity grid mean energy generated by the country’s wind farms is going to waste as it fails to get to the places where it is needed.

While German wind power is generated in the North Sea and Baltic Sea, industrial demand is needed most in southern states such as Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.

But congestion in Germany’s grid means electricity isn’t reaching the country’s powerhouse regions.

Experts are warning Germany’s issue could be repeated in the UK, with Britain’s grid possibly leading to the same outcome as wind power generation is focused in the north, despite demand being greatest in the south.

Jan Rosenow, an energy markets expert at the Regulatory Assistance Project, said Britain’s clean power target is “very aggressive” and his worry is if the UK doesn’t get things right due to the Government’s “very short timescales”, then there is a risk of running into the same issues that countries such as Germany have experienced.

He told the Telegraph: “We’re actually in a situation that is not that dissimilar. And so if we cannot build up the grid quickly enough, we will run into similar constraints.”

Germany has seen its total capacity rise from 38.6 gigawatts (GW) in 2014 to 70GW today as the country charges ahead with plans to cut its planet-warming carbon emissions.

Because of the way Germany’s energy market is set up, a grid operator has to pay a wind farm to cut its output in order to reduce congestion.

Grid operator Amprion has estimated the cost of managing congestion in 2023 alone was nearly £2.9billion, figures cited by the Telegraph show.

Wasted renewable energy in Germany over the past 10 years has more than doubled to 4%, according to the same publication.

Earlier this month, the Government unveiled a clean power action plan to decarbonise Britain’s electricity grid by the end of the decade in a bid to protect households from future energy price spikes, boost growth and tackle the climate crisis. Labour has set a target of 95% clean power across the UK by 2030.

A vast amount of infrastructure will have to be built over the next few years, posing difficult trade offs, including significant impacts on communities and the natural world.

The biggest challenge will be transforming the grid, with the Government announcing plans for Ofgem and the National Energy System Operator to work together on reordering the queue of clean energy projects looking to connect to it.

Britain’s system has been operating on a dysfunctional “first-come-first-serve” basis, but key projects identified to help reach the 2030 target will be brought forward in a move which is likely to prove controversial.

The Government will introduce new powers under its upcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill aimed at protecting itself from legal challenges from projects being pushed back.

UK onshore and offshore wind farms recently set a record of more than 22.5GW of power, providing 68.3% of the country’s electricity on December 18.

Neso’s data shows the record was set just days after wind power generated more than 22GW for the first time, with 22.4GW recorded on December 15.