Grid Study 2025: Barely any smart technology and huge financial gaps
Sluggish digitalisation in the distribution grid jeopardises the energy transition
Dramatic backlog in the smart meter rollout and the expansion of smart grids, technology from the post-war period and huge financial gaps: The sluggish transformation of the distribution grid is jeopardising the energy transition in Germany. This is the alarming result of the survey ‘Is the energy transition failing on the last mile?’ conducted by AXXCON, a management consultancy specialising in the energy sector, in which 104 distribution grid operators in Germany took part.
- Alarming: Only three per cent of distribution grid operators have fully integrated so-called smart grid technologies into their grid
- 44 per cent of grid technology dates back to the post-war period
- Only one third of the required investments, estimated at around 50 billion euros, can be financed by the companies themselves
In order to ensure grid stability and integrate flexibility, grid operators need an infrastructure that can be controlled in real time – so-called smart grids. However, only three per cent of the companies surveyed state that they have largely or fully integrated smart grid technologies into their grid architectures and use them extensively for control and optimisation. The majority of 65 per cent have only started initial pilot projects, are in the planning phase or have not even started yet. Only eleven per cent of the companies surveyed stated that their digital infrastructure is optimally set up for the increasing amount of data. The use of AI for grid control has only been examined by around a fifth of the distribution grid operators surveyed, and there are hardly any concrete applications to date.
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This is the advance press release on the AXXCON study ‘Is the energy transition failing on the last mile? Investments and digitalisation as challenges in the distribution grid’, which will be available from 25 June 2025. If you are interested, you can request the study at info@axxcon.com.
Source: ZfK Online, 03.06.2025
