Power plants become partners of renewables

In Germany and across the world, the expansion of renewable energy is moving forward, while the installation of high-capacity electricity storage facilities is lagging behind. For the transition period, the aim is to use power plants to meet important grid control requirements in the short term. In this way, steam power plants are becoming partners of renewables.

Existing power plants are however so far not designed for flexible operation to compensate the fluctuating feed-in from renewables. The steam generation plants and turbines are optimised for maximum output in basic and medium-load operating mode. During partial load operation, both efficiency of the plant and the individual component materials suffer. In many power plants, stability is not guaranteed with fast operation. Existing coal-fired power plants must be refurbished to enable them to meet the new demands. The advantage of these upgrade measures for existing power plants is that they can be implemented at short notice. Different technical options will be analysed in the “Partner-Dampfkraftwerk” research project.