If the power consumption is too high, gas-fired power plants have to help.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin In the fight against dependence on Russian natural gas, electric heat pumps are key for the federal government. Just a few weeks ago, Federal Building Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) and Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) announced an initiative to make this the new standard for heating buildings.
The aim is to install six million heat pumps by 2030, Habeck said at the end of June after a virtual “heat pump summit” attended by representatives of the heating industry, the housing industry, trade and the energy industry.
But how would six million heat pumps affect the power system? The Energy Economics Institute at the University of Cologne (EWI) examined this. “Six million heat pumps mean an electricity demand of around 30 terawatt hours,” EWI manager Johannes Wagner told the Handelsblatt. On a very cold winter day, such a number of heat pumps would increase the peak load in Germany by up to ten gigawatts.
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