04.07.2022 – 18:30

Principality of Liechtenstein

Vaduz (ots)

The Office for Civil Protection and the Liechtensteinische Kraftwerke (LKW) invited the population to the information event “Security of Power Supply in Liechtenstein” on Monday evening, July 4, 2022 in the SAL in Schaan. At the information event, information was provided about the planned exercise by the state management staff on a power shortage and the security of the electricity supply in Liechtenstein was examined.

Rising electricity prices and reports of possible energy bottlenecks are creating uncertainty, and forecasts are currently difficult due to the geopolitical situation. Questions about security of supply and the effects of supply bottlenecks in Europe on Liechtenstein are increasing, both in the media and among the general public. The information event clarified the most important questions and offered the interested public the opportunity to actively engage with the power supply in Liechtenstein.

Network connection to Switzerland is central

The Central European network is one of the most reliable interconnected systems in the world. Due to its location in the center of Europe, Switzerland is heavily integrated, so 10 percent of the entire European electricity exchange runs through Switzerland. This shows how important our neighbor is for the European electricity network. Switzerland has 41 cross-border lines with a capacity of around 25 gigawatts. With the connection to Switzerland and to a lesser extent to Austria, Liechtenstein is integrated into a highly available system. At 2 to 5 minutes, the reliability of the distribution grid in Liechtenstein is significantly better than in the surrounding countries and is therefore the absolute best in the world. With four network connections to Switzerland, redundancy is also guaranteed in Liechtenstein should a line fail.

Stable power supply in Liechtenstein

The power supply is currently guaranteed in Europe and Liechtenstein. Due to developments in the Ukraine war, however, the situation on the European energy markets is tense, which is reflected in higher energy prices. LKW has so far not passed on these price increases to Liechtenstein private households and customers with special contracts. A gas shortage and the simultaneous failure of relevant European nuclear power plants would exacerbate the situation next winter, also with regard to the power supply. The transition to renewable energy is important and needs to be accelerated, but it WILL not solve this problem in the short term. The trucks are therefore preparing for possible emergency scenarios in close coordination with the government and the organization for power supply in extraordinary situations (OSTRAL). The population and companies also play an important role when it comes to reducing energy consumption in Liechtenstein.

Staff exercise on the power shortage

A failure of the power supply was recognized as a relevant risk as early as 2012 in the hazard analysis of the Office for Civil Protection. Due to increasing cyber attacks, this risk has increased in recent years and due to the current geopolitical situation. A prerequisite for successful event management is cooperation between the staff. The government therefore commissioned the Office for Civil Protection in 2020 to carry out a staff exercise on the electricity situation together with LKW and the state and municipal crisis management teams. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the exercise was not held last year. The two-day staff exercise will now take place on 25./26. October 2022.

Press contact:

Contact:
Office for Civil Protection
Emanuel Banzer, Head of Office
T +423 236 68 56