Czech Grid Operator Says German Power Flow Overloaded Network
January 10, 2012, 10:32 AM ESTBy Lenka Ponikelska
Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Czech power grid in 2011 was repeatedly and “more frequently” overloaded with unscheduled flows of electricity caused by renewable energy from Germany, jeopardizing the security of the network, grid operator CEPS said.
The most critical situation occurred in the period between Nov. 25 and Dec. 16 when unscheduled power flows amounted to 3,500 megawatts while the usual value is about 1,000 megawatts, the Czech operator said in a statement today on its website.
The near-emergency situation in the network was mainly caused by excessive power output from German wind farms on windy days. The shutdown of German nuclear plants, the rise of installed capacity in photovoltaic power plants in Germany and intensive power trading on spot markets also played a part in the network overloads, CEPS said.
CEPS has implemented measures to identify and predict such situations and said the risk of the recurrence of such situations in the future still persists and the transmission networks in the region must be reinforced as quickly as possible, it said.
The country may have to install transformers at the borders to protect the grid at a cost of 2 billion koruna ($99 million), CEPS chief Vladimir Tosovsky told reporters at a press conference in Prague today, newswire CTK reported. CEPS already plans to invest 3.5 billion koruna in the network in 2012, the newswire reported.
--Editors: Douglas Lytle, James M. Gomez
To contact the reporter on this story: Lenka Ponikelska in Prague at lponikelska1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net
