At the Munich climate autumn, many people come together who want to advance the energy transition in the state capital. For the 16th time, there will be four weeks from October 7th to November 6th with many lectures and activities on traffic, construction and urban planning of the future. The mayor of Unterföhring, Andreas Kemmelmeyer, also has something to say about this. In the Unterföhringer corridor is the thermal power station north of Stadtwerke München, whose coal block should actually now be switched off after a referendum. The city wanted to replace this with gas. Kemmelmeyer thinks both are not a good idea. In the run-up to the climate autumn on Thursday, October 6, at 7 p.m. in the Munich Zukunftssalon, he will give a lecture on “Fossil power plants – or rather renewable energies?”
SZ: Winter is coming. Many in the Munich area rely on the fact that they have a warm room thanks to the Munich North combined heat and power plant. Garbage and hard coal are now burned there. How do you think the heat will be produced there in ten years?
Andreas Kemmelmeyer: Just like we’ve actually been doing for over ten years in Unterföhring. By switching to regenerative energies, such as geothermal energy. We have great opportunities due to the geologically favorable location in the Malm area in the greater Munich area. We in Unterföhring and many communities in the surrounding area rely on geothermal energy as a heat source – and not on fossil fuels. We also made this unmistakably clear in the development plan that we adopted in 2019 for the site of the North thermal power station. We have said that we are not planning prevention, but planning for the future for renewable energies.
“We are always relaxed,” says Mayor Andreas Kemmelmeyer. But he still takes a clear position.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
They see the future in renewables. The city of Munich also wants to get away from fossil fuels. Where is the problem?
You hear this statement over and over again. But that’s still lip service for me at the moment, because nothing is happening.
There was a clear vote in Munich: the referendum to switch off the coal block in Unterföhring in 2022.
Yes, that was in 2017. But look what has happened since then. Namely nothing. There was a will to create a gas turbine in our hallway. Munich wanted us to change the development plan because we have planning authority. At least that’s what people in the city know. Then it was said: If we don’t approve it, then – according to the intention of the city leaders – it would be legally enforced and our decision would be replaced by the government of Upper Bavaria. Luckily the government refused. That with the gas and steam turbine power plant sounds really nice. But if you look at it, it’s also a fossil fuel.
And then there’s Russia’s war in Ukraine and its gas war: gas isn’t the solution right now, it’s the problem.
But that’s what the city has in mind when it comes to sustainability at the moment. I see a big discrepancy: on the one hand, the public utilities boast about wind farms elsewhere. And nothing in Munich? For a long time, people slept through the energy transition. As a small municipality of Unterföhring with 11,500 inhabitants, we have invested more than 80 million euros in geothermal energy. If you convert that to the size of the city of Munich, you can get an idea of what is possible.
Are you demanding a massive expansion of geothermal energy from the state capital and the municipal utilities?
We ask for that all the time. Stadtwerke München also presented an alternative concept. But nothing happens.
The “alternative concept: building blocks of sustainability” envisages two biomass thermal power station blocks, several optional electric heating boilers, two photovoltaic systems and a geothermal system.
But when I hear politicians talking about the systemic relevance of the coal block. Good. In the current energy crisis, it may be a way of saying we need the carbon block now beyond 2023. You can still show it in any way. But at some point there has to be an end to city council decisions like in the past, in the year before the summer break. I just get a clear signal.
In your opinion, the city council must therefore show its colors.
And the mayor also has to show his colors, because it is not possible for the municipal utilities to present a concept and the city council acts as if it does not exist and only decides to let the power plant continue to run for reasons of system relevance and then eventually to build a gas power plant . Because this emits less CO₂ than a coal-fired power plant.
You have a strong lever with the planning sovereignty. You can actually be relaxed.
We are always relaxed. I also told the mayor, when he threatened lawyers, that the mayor and the municipal council of a small municipality like Unterföhring know very well that they have planning authority. And we will exhaust these to the last. We will decide on the development plan at the beginning of next year, which will then have legal force. And if something goes wrong, we still have the option of a ban on changes.
The lecture can also be followed online via zoom. Registration is required at www.protect-the-planet.de/event/