Kochel am See (dpa / lby) - According to environmentalists, the historic Walchensee power plant should in future be operated by the Free State. An alliance that includes the Bund Naturschutz, the Landesbund für Vogelschutz and the Alpenverein demanded on Monday that the concession for the hydroelectric power plant system, which expires in 2030, should no longer be reassigned.
The alliance, which consists of more than a dozen organizations, announced that state control could lead to ecological improvements for Germany's last branched wild river landscape and also greater security of energy supply. "If the energy supply is in the hands of the state, the state has control over this critical infrastructure." In addition, there is an opportunity to protect the nature of the Upper Isar, including the floodplain, more comprehensively.
According to the current operator Uniper, the approximately 100-year-old power plant, which is protected as an industrial monument, is one of the largest high-pressure storage power plants in Germany. At the power plant, the water from the higher Walchensee is drained into the neighboring Kochelsee through six large pipes, thereby generating electricity.
Hydropower generation around the power plant in Kochel (Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district) is to be legally reorganized in the coming years. "The aim is to secure the use of hydropower in the Walchensee system as a climate-friendly and regenerative form of electricity generation in the long term," said the Bavarian Ministry of the Environment in February. All permits ended uniformly at the end of September 2030.
At this point, two smaller power plants in the area automatically become the property of Bavaria, but the Free State must compensate Uniper for this. The Walchensee power plant itself remains Uniper's property, but the company would have to apply for a new permit. Since Uniper has gotten into trouble as a result of the gas crisis and is to be nationalized, Bavaria's Environment Minister Thorsten Faithr (free voters) and the Greens in the state parliament want to take over a total of almost 100 Uniper hydropower plants.
