Grid operations

Daily commitment to the system

Our grid length equals the distance between Berlin and Rio de Janeiro. We have 74 substations, onshore as well as offshore. Overhead lines with towers, high and extra high voltage cables, transformers, switching gear and all other components that make our grid one of the most secure in the world, require special care. Ultimately, the technology always needs to function reliably for many decades. To take care of maintenance and repairs, our grid operations department in Berlin works together with our regional teams at ten business locations in five regional centres:

• North in Güstrow and Greifswald
• West in Wolmirstedt near Magdeburg and Hamburg
• Centre in Neuenhagen near Berlin and Berlin-Charlottenburg
• East in Lübbenau and in the Chemnitz district Röhrsdorf
• South in Bad Lauchstädt and in the Erfurt District Vieselbach

Local contact

Our employees at the regional centres are local partners. They keep in touch with citizens, local politicians as well as the fire department. For example, where real estate management is concerned, we find the right solutions, together with owners, tenants and public authorities. To enable a well-functioning interaction of all parties active in the power grid, we regularly exchange with regional distribution system operators, electricity suppliers and customers directly connected to our grid.

Heavy gear on the road and safety

Transporting large technological components is always a challenge for all parties concerned. For instance, when a new transformer is delivered to a substation, extraordinary caution is required on railways, waterways and often on the street as well. The load-bearing capacity of bridges and crossings is tested in advance. This also is a task of our regional teams. As on all our construction sites, occupational safety comes first. 

Sustainable environmental protection and nature conservation in the region

Fruit orchards, hornbeam hedges or restored village ponds - not exactly things that remind one of the power grid. Nevertheless, we are often concerned by them in our area. When we optimise or expand our grid, this has an impact on nature. That is why we help implement compensation measures in other places to restore the balance. We have implemented several hundreds of such measures over the past decades and often manage them for many decades as well. This is also an aspect of 50Hertz grid operations. 

Onshore and Offshore

A particularity of our grid is that it is not only located onshore. Our team in the north manages the grid connections of the wind farms in the Baltic Sea. All these projects deal with occupational safety, environmental protection, quality assurance and operation of the installations, regardless of the weather for 365 days a year.

Operational environmental protection and incident reporting

We want to pass on a clean and intact environment to future generations. That is why industrial environmental protection plays a key role, including soil, water and noise protection. In the past, for instance, we replaced older transformers by newer more quiet transformers in our substations in Schmölln and Vieselbach.

In the past years, we experienced more and more extreme weather conditions, such as cyclone Kyrill in 2006. Every day, our grid is better prepared for such situations, for instance through the targeted reinforcement of overhead line towers. Nevertheless, if you ever see damage on one of our installations, please report this directly to us [see contacts below]. Our local team will take care of it – at any time.