Gas turbine maker voices concerns over “very ambitious” German plans for backup capacity
Tagesspiegel Background
U.S. gas turbine manufacturer GE Vernova has expressed doubts about the plans by Germany’s prospective next government to connect 20 gigawatts of gas-fired power plants to the grid by 2030, reports energy and climate newsletter Tagesspiegel Background. The target is “very ambitious” but faced a number of hurdles, business development director Markus Becker told the publication. Amongst other challenges, he referred to the high global demand for gas turbines.
In the paper summarising the results of exploratory coalition talks, the conservative CDU/CSU alliance and Social Democrats (SPD) said they were planning a significantly larger number of new power plants than the outgoing coalition government, which had aimed for a capacity of 12.5 gigawatts by 2030. The aspiring government wants to use those plants not only during supply bottlenecks, but to also stabilise prices.
Becker said it was crucial to speed up the permitting process to enable the planned expansion, and to rapidly create clarity about the framework conditions “under which the power plants are to be built and operated. So that our customers know where they stand”. This would also require an early agreement with the European Commission regarding state aid rules, he added.
To ensure that gas-fired power plants can continue to run after 2045 when Germany wants to be climate-neutral, the plants must either switch to hydrogen or use CO2 capture and permanent storage (CCS) – with the conservatives having already expressed openness for the latter option, said Tagesspiegel Background. In the UK, GE Vernova is supplying turbines for the world's first gas-fired power plant with technology to capture a share of the plant's emissions, the report said. Becker says this is possible because there is clarity about how the CO2 gets from the power plant to the storage facility, and who will be responsible. “These responsibilities must also be clarified in Germany,” he said. The prospective government has said it aims to swiftly decide legislation to allow CCS in Germany.
