Turbine production bottleneck threatens plans for new German gas power plants – industry

Several large energy companies say that a potential bottleneck for components needed for gas turbines in power stations could threaten Germany's plans for expanding gas-fired power generation in coming years, according to a report in the business daily Handelsblatt. Manufacturers like Siemens Energy, Mitsubishi, General Electric and Harbin Electric have the capacity to build enough turbines, but certain components can only be obtained from a few suppliers, said Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch. "The bottleneck is the turbine blades – they are important for the service, which is why we are investing here," he said. Georg Stamatelopoulos, member of the board of management of the energy company EnBW, said that "demand is high, but the market is tight." Industry experts say that the problem will be particularly acute if all the orders arrive at a similar time, and called for a well-managed process to build new gas power plants across the country, Handelsblatt writes.

Germany is set to hold auctions to support the construction of new gas-fired power plants in the short term, which would then be converted to run on hydrogen in the mid-to-late 2030s, the ruling coalition recently said. The plants are considered crucial to guarantee electricity supply security as the share of intermittent renewable energy increases and coal is phased out. The government has announced four tenders for 2.5 gigawatts each, of which the first is set to take place this year. If the turbines are ordered in four instalments of half a dozen per year, manufacturers would be able to deliver, writes Handelsblatt, adding that they currently produce 100 large gas turbines per year worldwide.