BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) – The EU Commission has approved the federal government’s involvement with the electricity network operator Tennet Deutschland. The registered project does not give rise to any competition concerns, said the authority responsible for competition at EU level.
According to earlier information from the Dutch Tennet Holding, the federal government is taking over 25.1 percent of the company through the state development bank KfW for around 3.3 billion euros. Tennet Deutschland is the largest of four transmission system operators in Germany and operates an approximately 14,000 kilometer long high-voltage electricity network between Schleswig-Holstein and Bavaria.
The Dutch Tennet group has been trying for years to sell off its German subsidiary or to bring investors on board. The Dutch government argued that maintaining and expanding the German high-voltage network requires high investments and is not part of the tasks of a Dutch state-owned company.
As part of the energy transition, thousands of kilometers of new power lines must be built so that the wind power produced primarily in the north can reach large consumption centers in the south. This expansion of the networks costs many billions of euros./wea/DP/jha