As of: February 27, 2024, 2:08 p.m
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Hendrik Wüst (l, CDU), Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, speaks.
© Oliver Berg/dpa
North Rhine-Westphalia only has six years left until it finally phases out coal-fired power generation.
Prime Minister Wüst is now warning unusually clearly that the 2030 target could be missed.
Düsseldorf - North Rhine-Westphalia's Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) has warned unusually clearly that the coal phase-out will fail by 2030 if the federal government does not improve its power plant strategy.
“The gas power plants will not be able to close the coverage gap,” said Wüst after a meeting of the CDU state parliamentary group on Tuesday in Düsseldorf.
“If it stays that way, the federal government will endanger the coal phase-out by 2030.” New trust must be created in long-term planning security, especially for energy, said Wüst.
The new power plants planned by the federal government are intended to replace climate-damaging coal-fired power plants and step in when there is no wind and no sun to cover electricity demand.
The new gas power plants will later be operated with hydrogen.
In the short term, new capacities of up to ten gigawatts are to be put out to tender - in the opinion of the black-green government of North Rhine-Westphalia, this is not enough.
It was agreed in 2023 to tender 24 gigawatts for the hydrogen-capable conversion of gas power plants.
There should be a political agreement on the future design of the electricity market by summer at the latest.
However, important questions still remain open.
The energy industry has been waiting for a long time for a strategy for new gas power plants, which will take several years to build and which are intended to secure the phase-out of coal.
Wüst also warned against approval processes that were too long.
Anything that happens after 2024 will be too late to be online again in 2030.
“That is pure logic.” However, NRW is ready to make a contribution to speed up the planning and approval processes.
It is conceivable, for example, that the same types of power plants could be approved more quickly through type approval.
“The economic situation is more than challenging,” said Wüst.
As an energy-intensive location, NRW is particularly under pressure.
The latest growth forecast of 0.3 percent for the country this year is better than last year's decline, but at the same time a "clear signal of the difficult waters Germany and thus also North Rhine-Westphalia finds itself in."
dpa