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Saxony's environment minister expects lignite power plants to end earlier

2021-08-09T05:44:08.802Z


In view of rising CO2 prices, lignite power plants could go offline faster than officially planned. At least Saxony’s environment minister is expecting this, because the first companies are already reacting.


Enlarge image

Neurath lignite power plant in North Rhine-Westphalia

Photo: Jochen Tack / imago images / Jochen Tack

All lignite power plants in Germany should be off the grid by 2038.

This is what the compromise agreed on by a government commission in 2019 provides.

However, according to Saxony's Environment Minister Wolfram Günther (Greens), a number of lignite power plants will go off the grid earlier than envisaged in the coal compromise.

"There is an extreme dynamic in it," he told the dpa news agency.

This is due to the rising CO2 prices.

At the same time, more and more investors, large companies and insurers committed themselves to the goal of climate neutrality.

"It can be assumed that, driven by the market, the lignite phase-out will take place much faster than the legally fixed phase-out date."

Günther referred to the Chemnitz energy supplier Eins as an example.

He is considering shutting down the last block of his thermal power station, in which heat and electricity are generated from lignite, as early as 2023.

So far, this was only planned for the end of 2029.

The company justifies these considerations with "massive losses" as a result of the sharp rise in CO2 prices.

In Saxony, according to previous plans, the Lippendorf power plant south of Leipzig is to be shut down at the end of 2035; this is planned for the last two units of the Boxberg power plant in Lusatia by the end of 2038, the official last phase-out date.

Protests in North Rhine-Westphalia against coal mining

Just a few weeks ago, CSU boss Markus Söder called for the coal phase-out to be brought forward to 2030 - and received some harsh criticism for this.

For example, Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) warned against renegotiating the compromise that had already been reached.

At the weekend, thousands of people at the Garzweiler opencast mine demonstrated for a faster exit from lignite mining.

They demanded more speed in the expansion of renewable energies and also the preservation of the villages in the Rhenish lignite district.

The place Lützerath, in which almost no people live, is supposed to disappear next for coal mining at the Garzweiler opencast mine.

A decision is to be made by the end of 2026 as to whether the villages of Keyenberg, Kuckum, Ober- and Unterwestrich and Berverath, which are part of the city of Erkelenz, will have to give way.

Operation in the three existing opencast mines in the Rheinische Revier is to gradually expire and end in 2038 at the latest.

mmq / dpa

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-08-09

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