Status: 08/29/2022 10:33 a.m
The Heyden 4 coal-fired power plant in North Rhine-Westphalia has been supplying the electricity market again since this morning. Other kilns are also to be ramped up soon. The environmental association Greenpeace considers this step to be “bitter, but unavoidable”.
The energy crisis is helping hard coal-fired power plants in Germany to make a comeback. In order to save gas in the power supply, another reactor has now been taken from the reserve. The Heyden power plant in Petershagen in North Rhine-Westphalia on the border with Lower Saxony has been back on the grid regularly since 5.30 a.m. this morning, said a spokesman for the operator Uniper.
According to earlier information, it should produce electricity by the end of April. With an output of 875 megawatts, the Heyden 4 power plant is one of the most powerful coal-fired power plants in Germany. It had been in service since 1987 and was last in the grid reserve. This means that it only occasionally produced electricity for grid stability.
STEAG also wants to ramp up power plants
In mid-July, the federal government decided to allow coal-fired or oil-powered power plants from the so-called grid reserve to operate again in order to save on natural gas. The ordinance is initially valid until the end of April 2023. According to the Federal Network Agency, the gas share in electricity generation was 9.8 percent in July.
At the beginning of August, the Mehrum power plant in Hohenhameln, Lower Saxony, which belongs to the Czech energy group EPH, was the first hard coal-fired power plant to be pulled from the reserve. In Saarland, the Essen-based energy supplier STEAG wants to start up its Quierschied (Weiher III) and Bexbach plants again by November at the latest.
Greenpeace demands compensation
The environmental association Greenpeace described the restart as necessary. “It is bitter, but unavoidable, that coal-fired power plants that have already been shut down go back on line,” said Karsten Smid, climate and energy expert at Greenpeace.
“In order to free themselves from the politically indebted dependence on Putin’s gas supplies, hard coal-fired power plants have to step into the breach for a short time.” So that this does not result in a step backwards for climate protection, the additional emissions that are now inevitable must be offset in the years to come, said Smid.
Clear no to lignite-fired power plants
However, Greenpeace is calling for the start-up of lignite-fired power plants for the power supply to be avoided. “For a secure power supply, not a single one of the particularly climate-damaging lignite-fired power plants has to be restarted – in order to achieve the climate targets that have been decided, they must under no circumstances be fired up again,” said Smid.
“The high prices for gas and electricity force energy to be used sparingly and make wind and solar power unbeatably cheap,” said the Greenpeace expert.