Diggers trying to identify the tangle of wires beneath a street in western Germany had to take a bureaucratic trip back to the Third Reich — the last time anyone drew a subterranean schematic. Today, that inertia is hindering a $1 trillion push to build renewable power sources.
(Bloomberg) — Diggers trying to identify the tangle of wires beneath a street in western Germany had to take a bureaucratic trip back to the Third Reich — the last time anyone drew a subterranean schematic. Today, that inertia is hindering a $1 trillion push to build renewable power sources.
Germany has an estimated 5.7 million kilometers (3.5 million miles) of underground cables and pipes for power, gas, telecommunications, water and sewage. That’s as long as seven round trips to the moon but not enough to carry the country through the energy transition.
Europe’s biggest economy wants 80% of its power generation to be green before next decade. That means more high-speed cables to connect wind turbines, solar panels and electric-vehicle chargers to the grid, but there’s no central registry for planners, builders or internet providers to find out where to put them. That deadens the pace of development and leads to about 100,000 accidental cable cuts a year.
“It’s unbelievable that we don’t know where our lines are located,” said Olaf Lies, the economy minister in Lower Saxony state. “Infrastructure expansion is one of the greatest challenges of the coming decades.”
This is a problem for the broader economy, including a planned digital transformation to address complaints about low broadband access. But it’s a particular problem for the energy industry.
The cost of future-proofing Germany’s energy system is projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2030, according to BloombergNEF. That means a huge amount of new infrastructure, and building all of that is complicated by the unmapped morass of underground cables.
“With Germany moving at such a slow pace, the country risks missing its climate goals,” said Nadine Bethge, deputy head of energy and climate for advocacy group Environmental Action Germany.
The US, UK and even Estonia are more organized in cataloging their underground pathways. The Lower Saxony government is advocating for a national database to help builders research what’s underfoot before shoveling.
Currently, about 11,000 local road authorities compile and keep their own data, according to the proposal seen by Bloomberg.
“Even if we do our inquiries, we cannot rely on the completeness of the information,” said Susanne Hake, an energy and digitization expert for the largest construction lobby, HDB. With some fiber-optic cables placed just a hand’s width under the asphalt, a builder would have to excavate with an “archaeological brush,” she said.
Telecommunications companies say shallow placement, dubbed “trenching,” is a way to roll out digital infrastructure faster and cheaper. But city planners criticize it, and Bundestag member Tabea Roessner, who chairs the Digital Committee, said regulators should develop guidelines.
A national Transport Ministry spokesman said the Lower Saxony proposal for a central registry of underground wires and pipes is being examined.
One platform that could be a solution is BIL, a cooperative effort by utilities and builders. However, it’s voluntary, and none of the big internet service providers — Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone Group Plc and Telefonica SA — have joined.
Their networks are partly mapped in a “gigabit registry” run by regulator Bundesnetzagentur, but it doesn’t include information on energy or water providers.
The body doesn’t have the power to force companies to submit their cable sketches, said Ivana Mikesic, a partner at R&P Legal, a firm specializing in regulatory issues. An agency spokesman said the atlas is incomplete, and a nationwide registry would require legal changes.
Wind- and solar-power developer Juwi GmbH sees the problem from both sides — as an operator, it has to answer requests from other firms, and as a developer, it has to do research itself. For a wind park in the eastern Germany countryside, it filed 33 requests with pipe owners.
“We have two professionals who specifically look after this information,” project planner Jörg Heilmann said.
In the US, builders call a national 811 hotline or fill out an online application to seek help. Each call center has utility maps for their geographic region, which typically encompasses an entire state.
A local authority then notifies utilities, which must send someone out to mark the approximate locations of their lines.
Britain is digitizing its cables in the National Underground Asset Register. The project started four years ago with a budget of £3.9 million, and last month the digital map went live for London, North East England and Wales.
Once fully online, it should give engineers an overview of 4 million kilometers of buried cables and pipes.
Estonia, the fourth-smallest country in the European Union by population, plans to go live this year with a central registry showing underground cables in 3D and updating placements almost in real time.
A counterargument by many utilities and telecommunications operators in Germany is that an open data platform poses a significant security risk, said Kerstin Andreae, chairwoman of energy group BDEW.
Deutsche Telekom said last year’s attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines and rail operator Deutsche Bahn AG show that infrastructure information should be protected with limited access.
In its proposal, Lower Saxony suggests changing road laws so the gigabit registry can be upgraded. To balance security interests, only builders or line operators could access it.
Pipe operators’ association VST — representing all power, gas, water, district heating and communications operators with regard to their security interests — is supportive, spokesman Jan Syré said.
“We will not be able to manage the energy, transport and digital transition if, before a groundbreaking ceremony, each potential operator has to be asked individually,” said Lies, the regional minister.
–With assistance from Mark Chediak and Oliver Crook.
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