BERLIN — Germany’s resolve to embrace a clean-energy future may soon face another test of not-in-my-backyard public resistance.
Network providers planning one of the country’s most important power-transmission pathways presented a proposal on Wednesday for an 800-kilometer, or 500-mile, corridor of high-voltage lines.
The power lines would carry electricity from wind turbines in the blustery north states to power-hungry industries in the south.
The project, dubbed SuedLink, is one of three major expansions to the German grid planned in the coming years.
The additional high-voltage lines are essential for the success of the government’s ambitious plan to transform Germany’s energy sector from a classic mix of fossil and atomic energy sources to a nuclear-free, near-total reliance on renewables by 2050.
But many Germans balk at the idea of high-voltage power lines running through their backyards and the fields around their communities. Last week, angry villagers in Bavaria protested plans by the network operator Amprion to construct a similar high-voltage line through their state.
An attempt by the power company TenneT last year to have citizens invest in another planned expansion to the grid in the state of Schleswig-Holstein failed to win substantial support.
TenneT, based in the Netherlands, and TransnetBW, from the German state of Baden-Württemberg, which are planning SuedLink, emphasized Wednesday that they intended to discuss the proposed pathway with citizens and leaders of affected communities before seeking permits to erect the 60-to-70-meter-high transmission towers that would hold the lines.
“We are at the very beginning of the planning stage,” Lex Hartman, who sits on TenneT’s management board, said in a statement.
“The corridor is not definitive, and we need feedback from citizens and communities to be able to plan this important link.”
TenneT and TransnetBW plan to begin talks this year and hope to have the line completed by 2022, the companies said.
The line is needed to transport electricity generated by existing or planned wind farms along Germany’s northern seacoast, carrying it to the industrial southern states, which are home to many of the nuclear generators that will be decommissioned.
While large-scale energy projects in some other countries, like the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that has been politically divisive in the United States, have often led to protests from citizens concerned about potential dangers, Germany’s Energiewende, or energy transformation, has enjoyed widespread citizen support.
Last year, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government passed a law aimed at speeding up the expansion and upgrade of the nation’s power grid, which are needed if the country is to reach its goal of phasing out nuclear power by 2022.
The plan envisions some 36 projects with projected costs of at least 10 billion euros, or $13.5 billion.
But with consumer energy prices that have nearly doubled in the past decade, including taxes and subsidies for clean energy projects that now account for roughly half of households’ energy bills, there is growing concern among leaders in Berlin that they may be stretching the limits of what citizens are willing to bear.
nytimes.com
Network providers planning one of the country’s most important power-transmission pathways presented a proposal on Wednesday for an 800-kilometer, or 500-mile, corridor of high-voltage lines.
The power lines would carry electricity from wind turbines in the blustery north states to power-hungry industries in the south.
The project, dubbed SuedLink, is one of three major expansions to the German grid planned in the coming years.
The additional high-voltage lines are essential for the success of the government’s ambitious plan to transform Germany’s energy sector from a classic mix of fossil and atomic energy sources to a nuclear-free, near-total reliance on renewables by 2050.
But many Germans balk at the idea of high-voltage power lines running through their backyards and the fields around their communities. Last week, angry villagers in Bavaria protested plans by the network operator Amprion to construct a similar high-voltage line through their state.
An attempt by the power company TenneT last year to have citizens invest in another planned expansion to the grid in the state of Schleswig-Holstein failed to win substantial support.
TenneT, based in the Netherlands, and TransnetBW, from the German state of Baden-Württemberg, which are planning SuedLink, emphasized Wednesday that they intended to discuss the proposed pathway with citizens and leaders of affected communities before seeking permits to erect the 60-to-70-meter-high transmission towers that would hold the lines.
“We are at the very beginning of the planning stage,” Lex Hartman, who sits on TenneT’s management board, said in a statement.
“The corridor is not definitive, and we need feedback from citizens and communities to be able to plan this important link.”
TenneT and TransnetBW plan to begin talks this year and hope to have the line completed by 2022, the companies said.
The line is needed to transport electricity generated by existing or planned wind farms along Germany’s northern seacoast, carrying it to the industrial southern states, which are home to many of the nuclear generators that will be decommissioned.
While large-scale energy projects in some other countries, like the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that has been politically divisive in the United States, have often led to protests from citizens concerned about potential dangers, Germany’s Energiewende, or energy transformation, has enjoyed widespread citizen support.
Last year, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government passed a law aimed at speeding up the expansion and upgrade of the nation’s power grid, which are needed if the country is to reach its goal of phasing out nuclear power by 2022.
The plan envisions some 36 projects with projected costs of at least 10 billion euros, or $13.5 billion.
But with consumer energy prices that have nearly doubled in the past decade, including taxes and subsidies for clean energy projects that now account for roughly half of households’ energy bills, there is growing concern among leaders in Berlin that they may be stretching the limits of what citizens are willing to bear.
nytimes.com
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