As the proportion of intermittent wind and solar expands nationwide, our hydro and fossil-fueled power stations provide reliable and flexible capacity that can balance supply and demand to maintain grid stability.

Most of our thermal plants use hard coal or natural gas as fuel. Uniper also owns more than 100 hydroelectric power plants in Germany. They are organised in the five river groups Danube, Isar, Lech, Main, as well as a group of pumped storage plants.

Further below you find an overview of our German power plants with links to the individual power plant pages.

Regulatory information on individual plants can be found either on the respective power plant page or the following dedicated page: 

Uniper analyses show three key developments: Dark doldrums (generation from renewables below ten percent of installed capacity) often last significantly longer than one day – in the past ten years, 1.435 dark doldrums lasting more than 10 hours were recorded. The average duration was 12.9 hours; the longest was measured in 2023 at 161 hours. This means that a dark doldrum of at least 10 hours occurred on average about every three days. In critical weather conditions, dependence on imports also increases: in November 2024, domestic generation was unable to fully meet electricity demand for more than 140 hours; at least 5 gigawatts of imported power was required throughout this period. At the same time, the gap in secured capacity will widen from 2030 onwards: controllable capacity will fall to around 48 GW, while peak load will rise to around 92 GW due to increasing electrification.

Imports cannot be relied on in the long term in bottleneck situations – during dark doldrums, neighboring countries are often affected at the same time, and physical grid restrictions further limit import options.

Uniper expressly supports the rapid expansion of battery storage facilities. They stabilize the grid in the short term, provide rapid flexibility, and smooth out peak loads. At the same time, it is important to understand that batteries primarily “shift” electrical energy in terms of time—typically within a range of less than ten hours. Controllable power plants, on the other hand, “generate” electrical energy; this difference is crucial when wind and sun are absent for several days.

Security of supply is created through the interaction of the system components, and battery storage can play a central role in the announced technology-neutral capacity market. However, this requires robust, balanced regulations. Examples such as Poland show that, with battery costs falling sharply, auctions can otherwise be one-sided, with surcharges almost exclusively for storage.

The power plant strategy therefore remains the necessary “speedboat” for mobilizing additional controllable capacity in the short term and at least partially closing the capacity gap resulting from the coal phase-out.