As of: March 25, 2024, 4:20 p.m
By: Lisa Mayerhofer
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The RWE Niederaussen coal-fired power plant is affected by the closures.
© Dwi Anoraganingrum/imago
At the end of winter, seven brown coal blocks are now finally closed.
Because of the energy crisis, five of them were once taken out of the supply reserve.
Bonn – The coal phase-out is now going one step further: As planned, seven more lignite-fired power plant blocks in Germany will be finally shut down at the end of March.
The closure of all blocks had already been planned earlier.
But then the energy crisis intervened.
Which brown coal blocks are now being shut down
At that time, the federal government took five blocks from the so-called supply reserve in order to save natural gas in electricity generation.
Two further blocks were allowed to continue running beyond the originally planned shutdown date.
Everyone was able to sell their electricity wholesale.
At the end of winter 2023/24 it will finally be over.
Blocks E and F in the Niederaußem power plant in the Rhineland region and block C in the Neurath power plant were taken out of security standby. All of them belong to the energy company RWE.
In the Lusatian district, blocks E and F were brought back from the Jänschwalde power plant, which belong to the Leag energy company.
There were also two further units (D and E) of the RWE Neurath power plant, whose operation was extended.
To reactivate the systems from security standby, former employees also returned from retirement to their old jobs.
Others postponed the start of their retirement.
Braunkphle: Netzagentur does not see any impairment of security of supply as a result of shutdowns
In total, the seven blocks have an output of around 3.1 gigawatts.
For comparison: the Datteln 4 hard coal power plant has an output of just under 1.1 gigawatts.
According to the Federal Network Agency, there were a total of 245 gigawatts of electricity generation systems on the market in Germany in November.
Of this, around 159 gigawatts came from renewable energy sources.
The network agency does not see any impairment of security of supply as a result of the closures.
“The shutdowns are planned and taken into account in all supply forecasts.
Security of supply continues to be guaranteed,” said a spokesman.
Within the European network, electricity is generated where this is most cost-effective.
“Germany and the other European countries mutually benefit from the most favorable production conditions.” The cheapest, currently available generation technologies are used first, said the spokesman.
Ampel wants to phase out coal by 2030
The Federal Ministry of Economics is legally obliged to check how much additional greenhouse gas was emitted by the continued operation of coal-fired power plants.
It must propose measures by the end of June to offset these additional emissions.
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The Green Party member of the Bundestag, Kathrin Henneberger, said: “Emissions from the combustion of lignite and hard coal in Germany are historically enormous and are one of the central causes of the climate crisis.
It is all the better that Germany is now returning to the planned exit path.” However, given the worsening climate crisis, this is not enough, which is why they are also working on a massive expansion of renewable energies and networks in order to completely phase out coal-fired power by 2030.
The coal phase-out is actually agreed for 2038, but the federal government would like to bring it forward to 2030 if possible.
In February, Brandenburg's Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) called for this date to be taken off the table because it would only create uncertainty.
With material from dpa