Direct line (Direktleitung)

Two categories, one fork in the road

German energy law recognises both. A Direktleitung is the immediate connection between a generating installation and a consumer. A Kundenanlage is a wiring network inside a defined site that is insignificant for grid operation and stays open on non-discriminatory terms.

The classification is not a formality. Network charges hang on it, so does the question of whether third parties can demand access, and so do the market communication duties. The 2023 and 2025 EnWG amendments widened the customer installation category, including for connections to EEG installations over meaningful distances. The boundary remains a case-by-case judgement and belongs before construction starts, not after.

What building one costs

Cost follows the voltage level and the ground, not the cable. In low voltage, meaning roughly up to 150 to 200 m of route and around 200 to 300 kW, civils plus materials typically run 120 to 350 EUR per metre, and it is voltage drop that sets the limit rather than conductor size alone.

Beyond that distance or capacity, medium voltage becomes necessary. A compact transformer station and switchgear then join the route, and that is where the step change in capital cost sits. The real cost drivers are rarely the cable: public road crossings, directional drilling, reinstating asphalt, rock and heritage protection move the total far more than any material decision.

When the route pays

A direct line pays when there is a load on the other end that takes the power at the time the sun is producing it. An offtaker with pronounced daytime load across the year carries a route that a building with seasonal consumption will not.

In project review the direct line is the option most often assumed early and settled late. It typically comes up when roof area and consumption sit on different parcels: a warehouse with area next to an operation with load.

Three things matter for the pack, and all three are documents rather than assumptions: the legal classification of the line, the consent of every landowner along the route secured as a registered easement, and a civils quote backed by a ground survey. Without one of them the route length in the model is an estimate, and debt service is being computed on an estimate.

Tenor deserves the same scrutiny as the supply contract behind it. A route built for 20 years against an offtake agreement running 5 is an open position, and it becomes visible during underwriting.