The European energy system is being stress-tested as the bloc’s most important rivers run dry, crippling output at nuclear and hydropower plants and threatening to do the same to the Rhine-dependent fleet of coal power plants powering Germany.

Two waterways shape the EU’s electricity system like no others: the Danube – once the main artery of the Habsburg Empire – and the Rhine, which supports the bloc’s industrial heartland.

As of Monday, the Rhine was at a low level at 43% of measuring points along its length, while the Danube was “extremely low” in 59% of locations, and low elsewhere, according to the German water-level tracker.

“This is a very early point in the year for the kind of problem we’re experiencing now,” said Steffen Bilger, Germany’s newly appointed transport minister, on Monday as he called for an emergency conference in Bonn on Thursday, in comments to Reuters.

Hungary has called on citizens and firms to slash their power demand at night, while doubling electricity imports from its neighbours in the wake of the country’s only nuclear power plant shutting down for want of Danube cooling water.

Romania has resorted to blowing up rocks to make space for a temporary dam across the Danube in a bid to keep its last nuclear reactor cool.

While both have made global headlines, much of mainland Europe is feeling the pain.

Austria’s run-of-river hydropower plants – normally powered by the mighty Danube – are generating 30% less electricity than usual. Bulgaria’s nuclear power reactors can operate for at least another three weeks, the country’s energy ministry said on Monday.

Rhein recession

When Germany’s newest – and likely last – coal power plant, Datteln 4, was built, it was lauded because it would be supplied “by ship via the existing inland port”, keeping its building footprint down. That is standard practice in the country’s Ruhr industrial area.

Barges must keep their load light to traverse the increasingly shallow waters, driving shipping costs up threefold and hitting the region’s chemical industry, along with the more than half a dozen hard-coal-fired power plants that rely on the Rhine for fuel deliveries.

“Overall, the effects could be strong enough to dampen third-quarter GDP by 0.1 to 0.2 percent,” Stefan Kooths, a researcher at the Kiel institute for economics, told Reuters – potentially pushing the country into economic stagnation.

(aw, ow)