More than one third of Germany’s 21,500 wind turbines are located in the nation’s east. This concentration of generating capacity regularly overloads the region’s electricity grid, threatening blackouts. German Economics Minister Rainer Brüderle recently warned that Germany faces frequent power blackouts because too much ‘green electricity’ is being pumped onto the grid. While this is a problem all four of Germany’s major electricity network operators have to deal with one time or another, Belgian-Australian company 50Hertz Transmission is particularly hard hit. It took over the monitoring and protection of the eastern German energy grid – which is home to more than 8,000 wind turbines – from Swedish company Vattenfall last year, and faces the threat of power outages much more often than its counterparts. Read More
