How the drought is exacerbating the energy crisis

Berlin Heinrich Kahlbaum drives the blades of his water mill with his foot. “The wood has to stay moist so it doesn’t become brittle,” he says. The power of the Dahme in the south of Brandenburg is no longer sufficient to move the wheel. A few days ago the river ran out of water at times. “It scares me,” says Kahlbaum, a wiry man with a full head of white hair.

The 68-year-old has owned the old dam mill, a hydroelectric power station in Wildau-Wentdorf near Luckau, since 1980. After reunification he had the weir and the mill repaired, and since then the plant has been producing electricity for his farm and a little more if the Dahme has enough water. For the food engineer, it was the entry into hydropower. In 1996 he leased a facility on the Havel from the shipping office that can supply around 300 households.