Nidroartha storage plant completed

The Niederwartha pumped storage station will be temporarily taken out of service from Monday. The operator, Fattenfall, confirmed last week that the plant would be “forced shut down”. A Vattenfall spokesperson said and named Plant 1 receipt for the longevity of this technology.

He demands that Germany should not do without it Dresden Professor of Physics Sigismund Kube. On sunny days around 12:30 p.m., the solar power systems will feed 40 gigawatts of power into the grid. “It’s about 40 nuclear power plants you’re going to get into,” said expert MDR SACHSEN. Nuclear power plants are off, wind and solar power are constantly changing, but consumption remains the same. Other power plants must be provided. So far, pumped storage stations have temporarily stored 10 percent of the energy and fed it back into the power grid via hydropower in periods of high demand.

New storage options must be found. “We can’t wait for green hydrogen strategies to really bear fruit.” Sigismund Köbe asks how energy transfer can work without intermediate storage. He regards closing the pumping plants as disingenuous. Because there is currently no technology that can temporarily store the amounts of energy produced by solar and sometimes wind power plants. “Even home storage plants can’t do that,” says Professor Coby. On the other hand, pumped storage stations are a proven technology that can store related parts. Overall, however, according to the physics professor, there are “very, very few” pumped storage facilities in the country.

Therefore, systems such as the one at Niederwartha had to be re-upgraded for 94 years. “It costs some money. We’re talking about a few hundred million euros. But that’s a very small amount compared to the total funding that’s being spent on energy transition.”

On the other hand, Vattenfall said that the modernization of the plant in Niederwartha was not economical despite multiple tests. It said before the end of operations that the system had been “used sporadically at best to generate electricity in the past”. Last week, the energy company confirmed talks with Sachsenenergie. The City of Dresden commissioned Sachsenenegie to negotiate with Vattenfall about taking over the pumped storage station.