Berlin attack on power supply: "Several systems damaged simultaneously"

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Five days after the arson attack on a cable bridge with five 110-kilovolt lines over Berlin's Teltow Canal, power supply in parts of southwest Berlin has not yet been restored. According to the state-owned operator Stromnetz Berlin, 24,700 households and 1,120 businesses are still cut off from the power supply.

20,000 households and 1,000 business customers have been reconnected. However, the operator asks customers to refrain from using high-consumption appliances for the time being. For example, no tumble dryers or washing machines should be used in the affected area, and no electric cars should be charged.

According to forecasts from the weekend, the problems should be completely resolved by Thursday. Weather conditions are hampering work on the lines: with frost down to -8° Celsius at night and just below freezing point during the day, construction work for the backup power supply continues, while unheated buildings continue to cool down.

Interior Ministry: No indications of false flags

"The arson attack can be classified as a left-wing terrorist act," explains a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) in response to a query from heise online. The authorities consider a letter from the so-called "Vulkan Group" sent to the media – unlike discussions on social media – to be genuine.

There are no findings regarding a possible Russian translation," says the BMI spokesperson. "There are also no findings regarding a so-called false flag operation." On Tuesday evening, the Federal Public Prosecutor General's Office took over the investigation. This is common for criminal offenses of nationwide importance.

But two further questions arise: Were there fundamental errors in the grid setup? And how could the crisis have been better managed after the attack?

Senate sees no fundamental errors in grid structure

The power supply in the capital is closely interconnected, emphasizes a spokesperson for the responsible Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises – structured in ring systems, there would be extensive "N-1" security, meaning a backup in case of failure of a single system. "In the present case, however, several systems were damaged simultaneously by the attack," says the spokesperson.

Not only the cables damaged by the fire suffered damage, short circuits in other systems caused additional difficulties. The southwestern part of the capital, which juts out in a wild zigzag directly to the former demarcation line to the GDR, was primarily cut off. 37 years after the fall of the Wall and the collapse of the GDR, there is no alternative connection via Brandenburg territory – at least not yet.

"There are plans and concrete projects for security-enhancing measures through alternative cable connections for the affected supply area," explains the Senate Department spokesperson. These are "currently being practically implemented."

The Senate Department, headed by former Federal Minister for Family Affairs Franziska Giffey (SPD), only presented a revised "Action Plan to Strengthen the Resilience of the Berlin Power Grid and Ensure End-Customer Supply in the Event of Power Outages" in mid-December. Giffey emphasized that there was no 100 percent certainty, but due to previous incidents, experts had "precisely analyzed where we can improve in prevention and reaction in crisis and developed a resilience concept."

A multitude of questions will need to be clarified after the acute situation is resolved, says Left Party domestic policy spokesperson Jan Köstering: "Above all, it is incomprehensible that the destruction of one transmission path means a complete grid failure for 100,000 people." Apparently, such weak points in the grids have not been addressed for decades.

The vulnerability of critical infrastructure has been "known for years," said the deputy faction leader of the Green Party in the Bundestag, Konstantin von Notz, to heise online. "For far too long, the problems have been criminally neglected by those responsible, including and especially in the Federal Ministry of the Interior." Von Notz has been criticizing – for years now [–] that the implementation of two key legislative acts for the protection of critical infrastructures is proceeding too slowly.

Legal KRITIS protection progresses only hesitantly

Just one month ago, the NIS2 Directive, adopted at the end of 2022 for better IT security, was transposed into German law without further transitional periods. The CER sister directive, also adopted at the European level in December 2022 for a minimum standard for better physical protection of critical infrastructures, has so far only made it to parliamentary debate. After red and black interior ministers struggled with its German implementation.

It is unclear whether the Kritis umbrella law would have brought about major changes: access to the now intentionally damaged cable bundle was secured with a massive fence and anti-climbing protection, according to the Berlin Senate Department.

The Association of German Districts (Landkreistag) points out that the value above which a facility falls under the Kritis-DG is far too high: 500,000 inhabitants supplied. "The majority of the population and businesses in Germany are supplied by operators who are below the threshold," calculates Managing Director Kay Ruge. The current example with 45,000 households and 2,000 businesses has already shown that the structures are "reaching their limits," Ruge states politely. He therefore advocates for a significant reduction in the threshold values.

Data vagueness and video surveillance should help

There are also louder calls for data on critical infrastructures no longer to be made publicly available. "The current transparency rules make it too easy for attackers to identify potential vulnerabilities in our energy grids," says a spokesperson for the Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKU). "In the worst case, this could reveal security-relevant location data that, in the wrong hands, could become an instruction manual for sabotage or hybrid attacks – for example, with drones."

Giffey has brought similar ideas into play. She did not reveal the concrete benefit this could have for infrastructures where, for decades, the historical inaccuracy of planning documents seemed to be the problem. In addition, the social democrat wants more video surveillance for critical infrastructures – this was not in place at the bridge to the Lichterfelde heating plant, which was now affected, because a publicly accessible path runs along the bank below it.

Kay Ruge from the Landkreistag emphasizes the importance of managing crisis situations: "This requires financial resources, personnel, and a lot of practice. It is not enough to just have emergency and crisis plans; they must also be continuously practiced and evaluated."

Bundeswehr and THW support

"There is still room for improvement in some areas," the Berliner Tagesspiegel quotes Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) on Tuesday evening regarding Berlin's crisis response. The capital apparently needed federal assistance more urgently than planned: 150 volunteers from the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) from 19 local chapters were deployed on Tuesday alone, says the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The Bundeswehr has been delivering diesel fuel to generators in the power outage area with a tanker truck since Monday, after the state of Berlin initially did not want Bundeswehr assistance. On Sunday evening, however, it declared a major incident to request more help from the federal government.

In Germany, the federal states are responsible for disaster control; the federal government is only responsible for civil defense in the event of war. However, in this case, the Bundeswehr and THW would already be otherwise scheduled – a situation that specialist politicians at federal and state levels have known for years. So far, neither the federal government nor the states have provided the necessary funds for effective consequences.

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