The electoral group FÜR Karlsruhe in Karlsruhe City Council has submitted a question to the city administration on the subject of “grid expansion and energy supply”. Among other things, it asked how electricity demand will develop over the next 10 years and what strategies the city of Karlsruhe is pursuing to secure the energy supply even during
dark doldrums and peak loads. The City of Karlsruhe’s answers to the inquiry show that steps are already being taken to secure the energy supply of the future. Nevertheless, FÜR Karlsruhe sees potential to further strengthen and concretize these efforts.
It is pleasing that Stadtwerke Karlsruhe is already pursuing concrete approaches with the underground cabling of the overhead lines and the construction of a digital twin of the electricity grid. These measures create an important basis for the secure operation of the electricity grid, even with increasing feed-in from photovoltaic systems, charging infrastructure and heat pumps.
“This should definitely be pursued further. The progress that has been made in the area of grid modernization is an encouraging step in the right direction,” explains City Councillor Friedemann Kalmbach from FÜR Karlsruhe. “At the same time, it is important that we continue to keep an eye on long-term challenges such as the storage of surplus electricity and security of supply at peak load times and also take on board technical developments that are achieved in this area. We see the cooperation with the KIT as positive. We should definitely make use of the expertise that is available on site.”
FÜR Karlsruhe welcomes the city’s decision to focus more on home battery storage. At the same time, possible legal obstacles should be identified at an early stage and solutions should be worked on together with state and federal politicians so that technical innovation does not fail due to bureaucratic hurdles. It would also make sense to develop additional concepts for urban storage projects in order to provide additional capacity in the long term.
“The city of Karlsruhe has set itself ambitious goals with the introduction of intelligent systems. Experts see the city’s plans as very ambitious. Sensible and realistic planning will therefore be a decisive factor. We would like to encourage those responsible in the city to develop concrete measures and timetables for the integration of private households and their capacities. In this way, all citizens can become an active part of the energy transition.”
The question of how to finance the future energy supply is still causing many people to wonder. The expected investments over the next ten years will be around 350 million euros. This is money that the city will not be able to raise due to its high level of debt. In addition, the costs in the years 2035 to 2045 are expected to amount to a further 400 million euros, which will lead to a total of 750 million euros in financing costs.
“The city is in a real financial crisis. In order to be able to afford an investment of this magnitude, we would have to take on more debt. And that would be expensive due to the rise in interest rates. We have not yet seen a coherent plan for financing,” said city councillor Kalmbach on the high costs of the changes to Karlsruhe’s electricity grid.
