Cold reserve

Cold reserve is a term from the operation of power plants or power plant units . Power plant blocks that are in cold reserve are taken out of operation for a long time (for this purpose certain conservation measures are carried out, English mothballing ) and can only be put back into operation after a certain lead time. In some cases, coordination with the authorities is necessary. On the other hand, shutdown means that the operating license for the plant has expired.

General

Reasons for reactivating cold reserve power plants can include: a. be:

• Economic growth,
• the failure of large power plants due to defects, incidents or other unforeseen events such as the nuclear moratorium or summer cooling water shortage in rivers
• Revision work on other power plants
• Change in fuel costs
• Cold spells in winter

Examples

In 2005, E.ON Energie sent around 1,800 MW of power plant capacity to the cold reserve. The reason given by the company was that these systems could not cover the costs of operation in recent years due to the low income on the electricity market. "Cold reserve is a good instrument to have the option of using blocks again later in the event of a change in the economic framework and as a risk prevention [...] at minimal costs. The plants were therefore deliberately not shut down."

Political discussion 2011

Since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima and the announcement of the nuclear moratorium in March 2011, German energy policy has been revised. In the course of the discussion whether it is possible and politically wanted to leave the seven oldest nuclear power plants and Krümmel switched off and whether there is a risk of power failure ("blackout"), Economics Minister Philipp Rösler suggested on May 28th, a cold reserve of one or more to consider two nuclear power plants. A newspaper put the cost of a cold reserve of two reactors at around 50 million euros a year.

On May 30, 2011, the federal government announced its new energy concept. Chancellor Merkel said at the press conference on May 30, 2011: "Like Mr. Seehofer, we prefer it to be a conventional cold reserve that can be used for this."

On August 31, 2011, the Federal Network Agency announced that it would "refrain from using a decommissioned nuclear power plant as a reserve for possible electricity bottlenecks in winter". Unit 3 of the Mannheim power plant , Power Plant 2 Mainz-Wiesbaden , Unit C of the coal-fired power plant in Ensdorf and the Freimann combined heat and power plant in Munich are to be used as cold reserves . In October 2011, the Karlsruhe Regional Council announced that Block 3 of the Mannheim Power Plant (GKM) could be used as a reserve for around 1300 operating hours during the heating periods in the next two winter months from November 2011 . On February 8, 2012, during the cold spell in Europe in 2012 , large power plant 3 Mannheim was put into operation for 5 days in view of the frosty winter and the supply bottlenecks for natural gas.

During the cold spell in Europe in January 2017 , German power plants were run up from cold reserves in order to be able to guarantee security of supply in France. There, the failure of a number of nuclear power plants and the high demand for electricity as a result of a cold spell put security of supply at risk. Since there are a lot of electrical heating systems installed in France, the demand for electricity increases by approx. 2.4 GW with every degree lower in temperature.

Monitoring

The Federal Network Agency observes - also against the background of the energy transition - among other things the development of the power plant portfolio in Germany. It publishes a comprehensive table every quarter, which shows which power plants are cold reserve, which have been shut down for good and which have been added.

See also

• Capacity reserve, network reserve, security readiness
• Power plant management
• Black start
• Base load
• Medium load

Web links

• DKE VDE: "Cold reserve service"

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} E.on reactivates old power plants
2. ↑ co2-handel.de: "Cold reserve"
3. ↑ Interview of May 28, 2011 Question: How should the impending supply gap be compensated for in the short term? Rösler: "We have to include something similar to a cold reserve in our considerations. That would mean that one or two power plants remain in cold stand-by mode for a certain period of time and are not immediately dismantled. They remain shut down, but are retained the ability to be restarted within a short time. The nuclear supervisory authority has to check whether the safety risk of these nuclear power plants would be lower. The security for our energy supply and thus our economy would in any case be many times higher. "
4. ↑ see last sentence
5. ↑ bundesregierung.de May 30, 2011: The way to the energy of the future ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ last sentence ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ In an emergency, the electricity should come from coal ( Memento from October 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), tagesschau.de , August 31, 2011
8. ↑ Darmstädter Echo : Mannheim coal-fired power plant may be cold reserve ( memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ Darmstädter Echo: GKM Mannheim receives approval for cold reserve block ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
10. ↑ Mannheimer Morgen: Großkraftwerk connects cold reserve to the grid  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
11. ↑ Mannheimer Morgen: Block 3 of the large power plant on the network until Friday  ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ↑ Mannheimer Morgen: More German electricity for France  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
13. ↑ Mannheimer Morgen: Cold reserve approached again ( Memento of the original from February 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
14. ↑ Mannheimer Morgen: Block 3 of the GKM as a cold reserve from the network  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
15. ↑ French winter troubles the German power grid . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , January 23, 2017. Retrieved January 24, 2017.
16. ↑ Power plant list of the Federal Network Agency .