Irsching Power Station near

Vohburg Vohburg (Central Bavarian: ''Vohbuag an da Doana'') is a town in the district of Pfaffenhofen, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Danube, 14 km east of Ingolstadt. Famous persons *Bertha of Vohburg *Diepold III of ...

at the

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

, Germany, is operated as a so-called

peaking power plant Peaking power plants, also known as peaker plants, and occasionally just "peakers", are power plants that generally run only when there is a high demand, known as peak demand, for electricity. Because they supply power only occasionally, the power ...

. From the original three units only unit 3 with a capacity of 415 MW is operated, the older two units, with a capacity of 151 MW (unit 1) and 312 MW (unit 2), are in cold reserve. The power station can be operated with light fuel oil and with natural gas. The owner and operator of the units 3 and 4 is

Uniper Uniper SE �juːnipɚis an energy company based in Düsseldorf, Germany. The name of the company is a portmanteau of "unique" and "performance" given by long-term employee Gregor Recke. Uniper was formed by the separation of E.ON's fossil fuel ...

, a subsidiary of E.ON Energy, while Unit 5, also operated by Uniper, is owned by Gemeinschaftskraftwerke Irsching, a joint venture of Uniper, Nuremberg's

N-ERGIE N-ERGIE is an energy company with headquarters in Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munic ...

Mainova Mainova AG ( FWBMNV6 is one of the largest regional energy suppliers in Germany and supplies about one million people in Hessen and neighboring provinces with electricity, gas, heat and water. It is based in Frankfurt am Main. History Mainova AG w ...

and HEAG Südhessische Energie. On December 20, 2007, a planned 18-month trial operation period of Siemens SGT5-8000H, the world's largest and most powerful gas turbine (capable of generating 375MW), started. After trial period the plant expanded to a high-efficiency combined-cycle power plant with a total output of about 570 MW and an efficiency of 60%. The unit 4 was commissioned in 2011. An additional unit 5 was built, consisting of two smaller gas turbines and one steam turbine. This unit has capacity of 860 MW of electricity with an efficiency of 58%. It was commissioned in 2010. Due to the growth of

Renewable energy in Germany Renewable energy in Germany is mainly based on wind and biomass, plus solar and hydro. Germany had the world's largest photovoltaic installed capacity until 2014, and as of 2021 it has over 58 GW. It is also the world's third country by instal ...

which often covers daytime

peak demand Peak demand on an electrical grid is simply the highest electrical power demand that has occurred over a specified time period (Gönen 2008). Peak demand is typically characterized as annual, daily or seasonal and has the unit of power. Peak dem ...

with solar power, the owners claim that they lose several million € a year. On March 30, 2015, the owners of unit 5, organised as ''Gemeinschaftskraftwerk Irsching GmbH (GKI)'', declared they wanted to close down all of its operations effective from April 1, 2016. This was denied, as due to the shutdown of nuclear power, network operator

TenneT TenneT is a transmission system operator in the Netherlands and in a large part of Germany. ''TenneT B.V.'' is the national electricity transmission system operator of the Netherlands, headquartered in Arnhem. Controlled and owned by the Dutch g ...

considers all power plants in its Southern German area as system relevant and having to remain as stand-by reserve. The operators demand better compensation for that. Another request for shutdown of unit 5 was denied in August 2017, as Tennet again demanded from GKI that, according to ''Netzreserveverordnung'', unit 5 remains operational, despite double digit M€ losses. GKI claims that Tennet plans to build similar gas powered peaker plants which are, unlike GKI's unit 5, entitled to compensation.https://www.n-ergie.de/header/presse/mitteilungen/eigentuemer-des-gaskraftwerks-irsching-5-weiterhin-zum-defizitaeren-betrieb-gezwungen.html

References

External links

Irsching power plant: Incubator for high-efficiency gas turbines (Control Engineering)
{{Authority control Oil-fired power stations in Germany Natural gas-fired power stations in Germany Uniper