Germany investigates two attacks on substations, authorities suspect sabotage

Berlin/Cologne, 2 September (CTK) - German authorities are investigating two attacks on substations in the east and west of the country on Tuesday. In both cases, they suspect sabotage. On Tuesday morning, unknown perpetrators caused a short circuit at a substation near the Jänschwalde power plant in Brandenburg. Today, police reported an intentionally caused short circuit at a substation in Bergheim, North Rhine-Westphalia. The state’s interior minister, Herbert Reul, said police were checking whether the two incidents were connected. In both cases, investigators are considering two possible explanations: that a foreign state or left-wing extremists were responsible.

The DPA news agency reported this morning that a short circuit occurred at a substation in Bergheim, near Cologne, on Tuesday evening at around 20:00. “Based on the information gathered so far in the investigation, we believe this was not a technical fault but a deliberate act, a criminal offence,” Essen police said this morning.

The Bergheim substation belongs to energy company Amprion, which confirmed the incident. “The general electricity supply was not affected at any point, and system stability was maintained at all times,” the company stressed. Its experts are working with police to clarify the incident as quickly as possible, it said.

Energy company RWE Power said the short circuit at the substation caused five units at two nearby lignite-fired power plants to be disconnected from the grid. They were units H, G and K at the Niederaussem power plant in Bergheim and units G and F at the Neurath power plant in Grevenbroich. Employees at both plants are working to reconnect the units to the grid, the company said. They have already managed to do so for at least one unit. The others are expected to be back in operation by the weekend.

At a press conference shortly before noon, Minister Reul said police were investigating the Bergheim case on suspicion of sabotage. The perpetrators caused the short circuit by deliberately throwing conductive material onto an overhead power line, he said. Investigators believe the attack was carried out either by a foreign power or by the far left. Reul said authorities were also checking for a possible link to Tuesday’s attack on the Turnow-Preilack substation in eastern Germany.

On Tuesday morning, an unknown perpetrator or perpetrators attacked a substation near the Jänschwalde power plant, on the border between the states of Brandenburg and Saxony, using objects resembling New Year’s Eve rockets. The power plant belongs to LEAG, which is part of Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský’s EP Group through EP Energy Transition. The perpetrators attacked the substation with homemade rockets and managed to cause a short circuit in two places. The attack led to a technical outage of Unit B at the Jänschwalde power plant, but operations have since been restored.

Brandenburg Interior Minister Jan Redmann said today that there appeared to be parallels between the two cases. However, the investigation is still at an early stage, he said. “We were damn lucky,” Redmann said, adding that the perpetrators apparently failed to achieve their goal of causing a major power outage. In addition to investigating sabotage, Brandenburg police have opened an investigation on suspicion of forming a terrorist group.

DPA linked both incidents to earlier arson attacks on energy infrastructure in Berlin. Power outages caused by arson attacks affected parts of the capital in January this year and in September last year. Authorities suspect far-left groups were behind them. Germany is also on alert over hybrid attacks that it attributes to Russia. Most recently, on Tuesday, it did so in connection with an August attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport, where employees found a drone carrying an explosive. Its detonator was faulty, however, and it caused no damage. Moscow has rejected allegations that it was responsible for the hybrid attack.