Chinese grid company SGCC to acquire strategic share in Germany’s 50Hertz

The State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) is reaching out for a 20 percent share in Germany’s transmission grid operator 50Hertz in a bid to gain valuable insights into a business area in which China strives for a leading global role, Thomas Sigmund and Klaus Stratmann write in Handelsblatt. “Policymakers are unable to prevent this,” they write, saying that SGCC’s planned share of 20 percent is “cleverly” left below the 25 percent threshold needed for German lawmakers to intervene in foreign investments into critical national infrastructure. 50Hertz is one of Germany’s four major transmission grid operators and already sources more than half of the power used in its operational area from intermittent renewable energy sources, which makes it especially attractive for state-owned SGCC, the world’s second largest company. “The Chinese can learn a lot from 50Hertz,” the authors argue, as the grid operator has proved that it is possible to uphold a stable transmission service even with large amounts of volatile energy source capacities like wind power.

Read the article in German here (paywall).

See the CLEW article Sino-German tandem: Export champions promote global energy transition for background.