Mixed coal signals from Germany

• 1 year, 5 months ago (2022-11-03)
• David Flin

Coal 273 Europe 1061

---

The German Government has approved a draft law to phase out coal-fired power plants in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia by 2030 instead of a previous date of 2038. At the same time, the cabinet approved extending the lifespan of two coal-fired plants in the same state to improve the country’s energy security as it copes with reduced Russian gas and oil supplies in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In October, Chancellor Olaf Scholz requested that the economy, finance, and environment ministries write into law an agreement to phase out coal by 2030. The planned phase-out will take place despite the decision in July to reactivate coal-fired power plants and to extend the lifespan of those already operating.

Under the newly announced plan, the Neurath D and E lignite-fired plants, which were supposed to go offline by the end of 2022, can run until March 2024. A decision as to whether to extend their lifespan by an additional year beyond that will be made in September 2023. The two plants, run by RWE , have a combined capacity of 1.2 GW.

RWE said in October that it was bringing forward its own coal phase-out by eight years and that it would end lignite-based electricity generation in 2030.