Bavaria's Economics Minister Aiwanger lays foundation stone for new Irsching 6 gas-fired power plant
- Minister Hubert Aiwanger: "Irsching 6 is our insurance against power outages".
- Uniper COO David Bryson: "The first large-scale power plant solely for grid stabilization".
- Tim Meyerjürgens, COO TenneT: "Grid expansion is crucial for the success of the energy transition in Bavaria and Germany. Until the energy transition grid is in place, we need "security buffers" like Irsching 6 for the power supply"
Bavarian Economics and Energy Minister Hubert Aiwanger today laid the official foundation stone for the new Irsching 6 gas-fired power plant near Ingolstadt. The 300-megawatt power plant will be built and later operated by Uniper. It will serve exclusively as a security buffer for the power supply. This means that the plant will not be available to the market, but will only step in at short notice in emergency situations when system security is at risk. The project was put out to tender by the transmission system operator TenneT, which will continue to request the plant as needed in the future. Uniper was awarded the contract for construction and operation at the end of 2018. Unit 6 is scheduled to be commissioned in October 2022.
Minister Aiwanger laid the symbolic foundation stone in the presence of District Administrator Albert Gürtner (Pfaffenhofen District) and Vohburg's Mayor Martin Schmid, as well as representatives of the companies TenneT, Uniper and Ansaldo.
Hubert Aiwanger, Bavarian State Minister for Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy: "With the shutdown of the nuclear power plants, we have new challenges to master in order to ensure security of supply. To do this, we need Irsching 6. The new unit is our insurance against power outages. Industry and private households alike will benefit from the flexibility of the gas turbine plant. I am very happy about the commissioning in fall 2022 and wish everyone involved every success in the further construction process."
Tim Meyerjürgens, COO of TenneT: "Grid expansion is crucial for the success of the energy transition in Bavaria and Germany. We are working on this at full speed. Until the energy transition grid is completed, we have to master the challenges posed by the shutdown of nuclear and coal-fired power plants and the fluctuating feed-in of more and more renewable electricity. Irsching 6 will help us do this as a security buffer for the power supply."
Uniper board member and COO, David Bryson: "With this power plant, Germany is breaking new ground. It is the first large-scale power plant to be built solely for the purpose of stabilizing the grid, an "airbag in the energy system". Previously, only existing power plants were used for this task. Irsching 6 is the future. A modern, highly flexible power plant is being built here, fully geared to the needs of the grid operator. My praise and thanks go to the project management, but also to the approval authorities, who accompanied the process very constructively and kept the Corona-related impacts small."
The gas turbine - the heart of the new unit - arrived at the power plant site at the end of May, with the generator and transformer arriving shortly before. The next step will be to assemble these components. The Irsching power plant is located near the town of Vohburg on the Danube. The natural gas-fired plant consists of a total of five - soon to be six - independent units, of which the two oldest units Irsching 1 and 2 have already been shut down. The modern and highly efficientcombined-cycled units Irsching 4 and 5 returned to the electricity market last fall.
For more information, please contact:
Uniper SE
Georg Oppermann
SVP External Communications & Sustainability
T +49 (0) 171-5639242
[email protected]
TenneT
Ulrike Hörchens
Leiterin Unternehmenskommunikation Deutschland
T +49 (0) 921 50740 4045
[email protected]
Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wirtschaft,
Landesentwicklung und Energie
Aaron Gottardi
Leiter Digitale Kommunikation
T +49 (0) 89 2162-2362 | F +49 (0) 89 2162-3362
[email protected]
About Uniper
Uniper is an international energy company with around 12,000 employees in more than 40 countries. The company plans to make its power generation CO2-neutral in Europe by 2035. With about 35 GW of installed generation capacity, Uniper is among the largest global power generators. Its main activities include power generation in Europe and Russia as well as global energy trading, including a diversified gas portfolio that makes Uniper one of Europe’s leading gas companies. In 2020, Uniper had a gas turnover of more than 220 bcm. Uniper is also a reliable partner for municipalities, public utilities, and industrial companies for developing and implementing innovative, CO2-reducing solutions on their way to decarbonizing their activities. As a pioneer in the field of hydrogen, Uniper is active worldwide along the entire value chain and is implementing projects to make hydrogen usable as a mainstay of energy supply.
The company is headquartered in Düsseldorf and currently the third-largest listed German utility. Together with its main shareholder Fortum, Uniper is also the third-largest producer of CO2-free energy in Europe.
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