Why it is like that? First, there is the freeway problem. A lot of wind power is produced in the north, which should actually be transported to the south via a transmission line, an electricity highway, where there is a lack of production capacity. But that’s not possible because there is no such highway, at least for the time being. The Suedlink, the notorious route, will not be finished until 2028 at the earliest – and there are question marks behind it too. For parts of the project in Baden-Württemberg there are not even planning approval decisions.
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The federal government is currently trying to increase the influence of the state on the transmission system operators, probably also to speed up the expansion, not only in the north-south connection, but also in the grid connections for new wind farms at sea. In order to be able to exert direct pressure here, the officials from Robert Habeck’s Ministry of Economics and Climate are negotiating with the Dutch government about buying the German extra-high and high-voltage grids from the transmission system operator Tennet.