Municipalities warn why the power could go out in winter

Germany may face a cold winter. Especially those who work at home in the home office do not want to sit freezing in front of the computer. An electrically operated fan heater is an emergency solution. But that’s exactly what the municipalities are now warning of, as the world reports.

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Accordingly, the German Association of Towns and Municipalities warned of widespread power failures in Germany in view of the energy crisis. There is a risk of a blackout if the German power grid is overloaded. That could be the case when “the 650,000 fan heaters sold this year go online”. This feared simultaneous mass use of power-guzzling fan heaters could occur again if the gas supply were to collapse. As early as July 2022, the technical associations VDE and DVWG had also warned against the mass use of electric fan heaters for precisely this reason. In addition, the German Association of Towns and Municipalities sees the danger of hacker attacks that could collapse the German power grid.

However, energy experts disagree and speak of scaremongering, because the German power grid is well prepared. At least regionally limited and only for a short time, the shutdown of certain cities or districts is in fact conceivable, as Christoph Maurer from the consulting firm Consentec admits.

The Federal Network Agency also warns

Aside from the fact that fan heaters could cause a grid failure, heating with electrically powered fan heaters is expensive. The Federal Network Agency also draws attention to this aspect and, in this context, also warns that the mass use of fan heaters could push the German power grids to their local limits, as the Tagesspiegel reports.