The planet’s energy needs are evolving. Solar and wind power projects proliferate, but the energy is seldom generated where the customers are. In order for supply to meet demand, sustainable energy must be transported – reliably, safely and efficiently.

Gerald Kaendler, Head of Asset Management at Amrpion, regards this as the challenge for his generation:

“We have a society agreement that we need an energy transition to a sustainable future. We have to be efficient, secure and most of all, we have to become climate neutral. It is very important that we pave the way because the energy transition will be all about electricity.”

Amprion, a large transmission system operator in Germany, is at the forefront of making this transition happen in Germany and across Europe. The company is positioned at the core of central Europe and therefore their transmission grid is recognised as fundamental to enabling the energy transition across the whole region.

Dr Frank Reyer, Head of Grid Management at Amprion, oversees the company’s control area which manages and monitors supply and demand across their entire network. For Reyer, this visibility is the first and most important step to guaranteeing system stability during the energy transition: :

“It’s important to have an overview of everything that is happening in our control area. And we have to take care that our customers can get this electricity in a secure way. We have a large program for sustainability. We check everything which is needed to become a fully sustainable company.”

One of the major issues the company faces is taking into account the long-term changes to which they will need to adapt in the coming decades. Gerald Kaendler explains how adaptability is built into Amprion’s strategy and infrastructure:

“We look at long term scenarios, together with society and together with our customers to see in which way the system can develop. Based on this, we plan the future energy system. That is our mission and our strategic approach to support climate neutrality.”

In particular, sustainable sources of energy form an important part of this neutrality. Amprion is planning substantial links between future offshore wind farms and the company’s grid. Simultaneously, Ampiron is improving the connectivity of existing customers by making upgrades and improvements to the existing grid, installing new 380-kV-lines in substations to ensure efficiency and reliability. “All those projects,” says Kaendler, “together make the energy transition happen.”

The importance of transporting energy is arguably the most important part of such an energy transition, as Dr Frank Reyer explains:

“Countries are changing their production. It may happen that in one country you have no wind, while in another country, there is wind energy and so on. It is getting more important to have interconnection to import energy from one country to another.”

Reyer is confident that climate neutrality will be achieved and that the in-built adaptability of the control center will be able to manage it:

“We have built this new main control center as a basis for the energy transmission from today’s system to the system in the future. We are ready to add step by step new technologies, which are needed to have a secure system operation for the energy system transmission from today to the coming 10, 20 years.”

This flexibility can already be seen in operation today. Birgit Carlstaedt is Head of Energy Procurement and Risk Management at DB Energy, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, which operates the 16.7 Hertz grid with a total length of nearly 8,000 kilometers in Germany, used to power the train network. She says that Amprion is helping their company to reduce emissions:

“The 16.7 Hertz transport grid is connected to Amprion on several points. We can transfer energy from the 50 Hertz side and the 16.7 Hertz side. And with this grid coupling point, we can assign some contracts for renewable energy on the 50 Hertz side, and then transfer to 16.7 Hertz, the frequency we need for the trains.”

Gerald Kaendler says that the company is on track to meet the goal of carbon neutrality in 2045, but the drive to innovate will not stop there:

“We are on a very challenging journey. We will see lots of innovation and we will have to take this innovation into account to further develop the system. So 2045 will be a very important point and time to reach our objectives, but the journey will continue further on.”