The Federal Network Agency is calling for shutdown options for solar power plants to prevent solar blackouts. “Distribution network operators must be enabled to control solar systems in critical network situations in order to keep the networks stable,” said agency president Klaus Müller in an interview with “New Osnabrück Newspaper“There is no way around making new solar systems controllable.”

The Bundestag must pass the relevant legislative changes “as early as this autumn.” “Then all the players can get everything up and running quickly enough.”

The reason for the demand is the massive solar expansion. This is “very pleasing,” said Müller, but stressed: “At the same time, the local network expansion must keep pace with this.” This is not the case in many places.

In addition to the possibility of shutting down the grid in critical situations, solar parks would also have to “stop feeding in electricity if nobody wants to pay for it,” demanded the President of the Federal Network Agency“In the future, feed-in should be based on the market price and thus on consumption.”

Solar park operators currently receive guaranteed prices from the state for their electricity, even when market prices are negative because the electricity is not needed. This costs taxpayers millions of euros.

Investors’ interests should be better aligned with the supply system

“It’s not about slowing down the expansion of solar power,” stressed the authority’s president. “But it’s about making the most of the technical possibilities, for example if solar systems are supplemented with storage, then excess electricity can be stored and not throttled.”

The interests of investors and the system must be better coordinated than before. “Admittedly, implementing all of this pragmatically is a difficult task for all players. We have to get to work on it now.”

In addition, more wind power is to be brought from the north to the south. To this end, thousands of kilometers of new overland power lines are to be laid in the next few years. A significant portion is planned as underground cables, and the Federal Network Agency does not want to change this despite suggestions from politicians to save money. “We should stay the course now,” recommended Müller. He contradicted several federal states. In order to spend less money, they would rather build overhead lines.

The head of the Federal Network Agency explained that a year and a half ago, such a decision could have saved 16.5 billion euros. Since then, however, plans have continued to use underground cables in accordance with the current legal situation. Very good progress has been made. “If politicians were to change course now, this would lead to a significant delay and consequently to considerable additional costs,” warned Müller.

According to previous information, the agency estimates the investment volume for the expansion of the transmission networks by 2045 at around 320 billion euros – including the wind-at-sea connections, the so-called offshore projects. According to the Federal Ministry of Economics, around 18,000 kilometers of network must be strengthened or expanded. The number of kilometers of route under construction doubled in 2023 compared to 2021.