BERLIN, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Germany's electricity distribution grids need investments of more than 110 billion euros (128 billion U.S. dollars) by 2050 in order to achieve the country's climate targets, according to a study published by energy company E.ON on Thursday.

If investments were not made "consistently" from now on, Germany's grids would no longer be able to handle the electricity generated from renewable energies, noted the study conducted by RWTH Aachen University and Frontier Economics.

"The basis for a successful implementation of the energy transition and for climate protection is comprehensive, high-performance energy infrastructure," said Thomas Koenig, chief operating officer (COO) at E.ON.

The rising number of new customer solutions such as electro-mobility, heat pumps or decentralized storage would also require a considerable expansion of the electricity grids, the study noted.

If Germany failed to invest in and modernize its grid, the follow-up costs of up to 4.2 billion euros per year would arise in the coming decades, the study indicated.

"Politicians and regulators must now create the right framework conditions to ensure that we in Germany remain a leader in security of supply in the future," added Koenig.

So far, the power supply in Germany continued to be very reliable. "We are observing the lowest downtimes since our surveys began," said Jochen Homann, president of the federal network agency Bundesnetzagentur when presenting the figures for 2019.

According to the German network agency, the average duration of a blackout fell by 1.71 minutes to 12.20 minutes compared with the previous year as the energy transition and the increasing share of decentralized generation capacity still had "no negative impact on the quality of supply." Enditem

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