At the beginning of July, Germany's federal administrative court approved a new 115-kilometer transmission line. Earmarked to transport renewable power, the €130 million Uckermark project will connect the wind-rich Brandenburg region in the country's north to Berlin.

With the start of the construction on July 11, project developer 50Hertz Transmission GmbH capped a 17-year effort to permit the line — an effort company CEO Stefan Kapferer said is too long and too common. 50Hertz, one of Germany's four power transmission grid operators, first submitted a planning application for the project in 2005.

"The expansion of our grid infrastructure is not fast enough," 50Hertz CEO Stefan Kapferer said in a July 15 interview. "We have permission procedures and claims against permission procedures that take too long."

The company's experience lays bare a perennial bottleneck in the energy transition in both Germany and Europe more broadly.

The Uckermark Line's approval was held up because of a series of legal challenges from the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union relating to bird protection. The project received a building permit in August 2020, only for the environmental group to once again contest the decision, costing 50Hertz another two years.

Legal action is just one of several factors slowing down the expansion of the power grid. In a statement announcing the Uckermark Line's overdue go-ahead, Kapferer talked about insufficient staffing in Germany's planning authorities and courts, as well as administrative delays from having to double check "nearly identical matters."

A government report in January outlined just how clogged the permitting system has become for grid projects: Only around 2,500 km of the required more than 12,000 km of new power lines in federal grid plans were in operation or construction as of the third quarter of 2021, with 9,718 km stuck in planning limbo.

"As things stand, substantial delays can be expected in the expansion of transmission systems, which will play a crucial role in the future electricity system," the government said. "If we are to be able to comply with the ambitious climate targets, these processes and corresponding review programs will have to be accelerated as much as possible."

Slow permitting 'no longer OK'

The expansion of Germany's power grid has long failed to keep pace with the country's rapid buildout of wind and solar.

Lacking in north-south interconnection, high levels of renewables penetration in northern states — including from the country's many offshore wind farms in the North and Baltic Seas — is often cut off from the industrial heartlands in the south. Wind and solar have frequently been forced into curtailment as a result, with the situation exacerbated as nuclear plants are phased out.

Several planned "priority" power lines running from north to south continue to rack up delays. According to the government, the 700-km SuedLink, for example, transporting wind power from the north to the southern industrial states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, is not likely to enter operation until 2028, as opposed to 2026 as previously planned.

Kapferer welcomed moves by the government to push through amendments to the Energy Industry Act, Federal Requirements Plan Act and Power Grid Expansion Act in an attempt to make grid permitting less burdensome.

"The German government has made some decisions that from my perspective are very positive first steps to reduce these procedures," Kapferer said, adding that grid operators must also "change [their] mindset."

"It's no longer OK" for the approval of new grid infrastructure to take a decade or longer, the CEO said.

The Uckermark Line will replace an existing 220-kV power line, commissioned in 1958, with 380-kV infrastructure.

One section of the line, between Vierraden in Germany and Krajnik in Poland, is already operational, having been granted project of common interest status by the EU. The section includes phase-shifter transformers that can be used to adjust the flow of electricity between the two countries.

Vierraden is located near Schwedt, where Russian state-controlled PJSC Rosneft Oil Co. operates an oil refinery that could eventually be electrified as part of a conversion to green hydrogen.

Expanding the offshore grid

Faster and more streamlined administrative processes will help 50Hertz and Germany's three other power grid operators — TenneT TSO GmbH, Amprion GmbH and TransnetBW GmbH — in their quest to build more than 1,000 km of new high-voltage lines that are included in the companies' joint network plan for 2035.

The plan includes projects with an investment volume of up to €115 billion, of which up to €76.5 billion is onshore power lines and the remainder being offshore infrastructure.

The development of Germany's offshore grid paints a contrasting picture to the issues experienced by 50Hertz onshore, Kapferer said. Projects typically get permitted much more quickly since there are fewer objections from local people, and construction is also a speedier process.

"Our experience is realizing grid connections for offshore wind projects is normally on time," the CEO said.

50Hertz, which is majority owned by Belgian grid operator Elia Group SA/NV, is active in both the North and Baltic Seas. It already operates a two-way interconnector linking Germany and Denmark, and is working with its Danish counterpart, Energinet.dk, on another 400-km connection that would allow the two countries to share 2 GW of offshore wind power. 50Hertz is also planning another cable to link Germany with Sweden.

"We all know offshore wind is closest [among renewable energy technologies] to baseload," Kapferer said. "It's not a surprise that we are very much in favor."

Commodity Insights reporter Andreas Franke, who contributed to this story, writes for S&P Global Platts Dimensions Pro. S&P Global Commodity Insights is owned by S&P Global Inc.

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