Hin the corner are old maps. A circle has been drawn in north-west Germany: “Dams are threatening to break”, someone wrote in with a colored pencil. More circles on the North Sea: “Dike closure”, “Threat of flooding”, it says. “That was a flooding scenario with subsequent evacuation,” remembers Uwe Langer. “We also had power blackouts, water supply failures and building demolitions. We also practiced the pandemic – before Corona.”
Now, however, an emergency is looming: If the Kremlin turns off the gas supply to European countries, it will jeopardize the supply of millions of households and businesses in the particularly dependent industrialized country of Germany. The energy supplier EWE in Oldenburg is also preparing for an acute gas emergency. “There is actually a button here that we press, and then our people come together for a crisis meeting,” says Uwe Langer. “The day the war broke out, we had our first meeting.”
Langer is a mechanical engineer and has been taking care of the gas supply at EWE for thirty years, now as head of development for energy systems. The exact address of the utility’s network control center may not be given. The area is fenced and monitored by cameras. There are other safety zones in the building, there is a strict mask requirement. Employees must monitor the electricity, gas and water infrastructure 24 hours a day. “We also have enough electricity, food and beds here for emergencies,” explains electrical engineer Tim Lüken, who manages the site. “We also have back-up control rooms on hand should this building become unusable.”
“Never give up the reins of action”
The EWE network control center not only monitors the gas supply in western Lower Saxony, but also some regions in Brandenburg and the island of Rügen. Because the energy supplier that was once only responsible for the Oldenburg area has grown over time. The company, which is majority owned by the municipalities in the Oldenburg region, is now number five in the industry behind the four large groups Eon, RWE, Vattenfall and EnBW. This may also have something to do with the fact that Northwest Lower Saxony has often played a pioneering role when it comes to gas.
Above the cavern: left Tim Lüken (Head of Network Management at EWE), André Janssen (Head of Storage Marketing), right Uwe Langer (Head of Development Energy Systems) at the natural gas storage facility in Huntorf
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Image: Domenic Driessen
Uwe Langer leads into the heart of the building, the gas network control center. In the room, two employees monitor the flow of gas in the entire network around the clock. One searches in vain for ramified circuit diagrams on the walls. The employees sit in front of ten screens each, on which they see everything that is happening in front of them. An orange warning light starts to light up on the ceiling. A short time later, an acoustic signal is added. “Apparently it’s an urgent case,” says Langer and asks about the reason. In a gas station near Frankfurt (Oder), the dew point limit value was exceeded at a sensor. There is no risk to the network. “Someone is going out now. Messages of this kind come in here all the time and are then processed,” says Langer.