The latest annual climate summit, COP31, began in Turkey these days. Coincidentally or not, its start coincided with the first major Dunkelflaute — a period of calm and gloomy weather — of the season in Europe. As a result, the first three days of the current week set historic records for electricity generation from gas-fired power plants in Germany (chart by Michael Caravaggio, EPRI). However, that is far from all.
First, these records are being set amid the lowest gas storage levels in Germany and the EU. Winter has not yet begun, but gas storage facilities are being depleted at a frantic pace, with Germany reporting storage levels of just 57.7% today. The threat of extremely high prices and even a potential shortage in the event of a cold winter is becoming entirely real.
Second, the records set by gas-fired power plants are occurring alongside lignite-fired power plants operating at full capacity (around 95% of their capacity) and heavy use of hard-coal-fired power plants as well (the second chart). Overall, fossil-fuel power plants accounted for around 80% of all electricity generation in Germany during the first three days of the current week, with their contribution exceeding 90% during some time periods.
Third, all this massive operation of thermal power plants is not helping particularly much, and Germany is emerging as a major net importer of electricity during those three days. At times of high consumption, we are talking about net imports of 14–16 GW, or around 20% of the system’s consumption.
Fourth, this is affecting electricity prices not only in Germany but across almost the entire European Union, and every day we recorded another annual record.
All of this came to an end with the arrival of strong winds, which powered up the thousands of turbines. This is exactly how medieval sailing ships, pumps and mills operated before the arrival of the coal-fired industrial steam engine. Just saying...