Municipal utilities association VKU calls for better protection of critical infrastructure

Berlin. The municipal utilities association VKU is calling for more options for better protection of critical infrastructure against sabotage. General Manager Ingbert Liebing said at the VKU Congress in Berlin: “We could do more if we were allowed to.” Data protection and other restrictions prevented municipal utilities from video surveillance of facilities, for example. Resilience must be increased in order to return to normal operations more quickly after successful attacks. More precautions must be taken.

There will not be 100% security, said Liebing from the Association of Municipal Companies. There are around 250 substations and around 130,000 kilometers of high and extra-high voltage lines in Germany. You won't be able to put a police officer everywhere.

RWE boss Markus Krebber also called for better protection of critical infrastructure after a series of sabotage attacks on the power grid in several federal states. Krebber, for example, criticized transparency laws that made critical infrastructure public.

After the series of sabotage attacks on the power grid, the police arrested a suspicious 48-year-old. Investigators believe that he tried to sabotage power lines near coal-fired power plants in several locations in North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg and Saxony - in some cases he is said to have succeeded.