The Stadtwerke’s (SWM) North thermal power plant has been a political issue for years. Before the next heating season, Unit 2 is to be finally converted from coal to gas operation. The economic department responsible for the SWM will inform the city council about how intensively the facility will be used in the coming years and how much CO₂ it will probably emit in an “announcement” for the meeting of the economic committee in mid-April.
Stefan Jagel, head of the Left/The Party faction, criticizes the fact that no vote has been scheduled and that the city council cannot provide any concrete guidelines for future gas operations. Economics officer Clemens Baumgärtner (CSU) replies that, according to the city council’s rules of procedure, only an “announcement” is possible because the fundamental decision to switch to gas has long been made.
The city council approved the renovation in 2022. This is intended to satisfy the referendum “Get out of hard coal” from 2017. Because of the energy crisis resulting from Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, the switch to gas was postponed twice. Block 2 is scheduled to run until a maximum of 2035, by which time it will have reached its technical end of life, according to SWM.
At the request of the left-wing faction, the SWM is now providing more precise information on the future utilization of Block 2. According to SWM, the number of “hours of use” per year should gradually decrease from an initial maximum of 3,400 hours to up to 2,200 hours. The SWM emphasize that switching to gas would save a good two million tons of CO₂ by 2035 – compared to the previous “driving style” with coal.
The left-wing faction and various environmental groups are demanding that the city council should set upper limits for capacity utilization and an earlier shutdown date in order to minimize CO₂ emissions. The economic department and SWM reject this. The fear that gas operations will emit more climate-damaging CO₂ is “unfounded”. Outside the heating periods, the use of Unit 2 will decrease “significantly” because other systems produce electricity and district heating more efficiently. It is expected that Unit 2 will “run significantly less” in the future than before in coal operations.
Limiting the running time for gas power plants would be “absolutely counterproductive,” according to the economic department, as long as electricity is being generated from coal “on a large scale” in Germany. Gas-fired power plants generally emit less CO₂ than coal-fired plants. Only after the nationwide coal phase-out would it “make sense from a climate policy perspective” to begin phasing out gas. Gas could in the future be replaced by hydrogen.
According to SWM, the renovation of Block 2 this summer will cost a maximum of two million euros. At the same time, eight million are saved every two years for the then unnecessary overhauls in coal operations. Expenses for CO₂ certificates would also fall because less CO₂ is emitted in gas operations; However, it is not yet possible to quantify these savings.
According to SWM, how long Unit 2 remains online after the system’s relevance ends depends on the expansion of renewable energies, especially geothermal energy. SWM is already the largest operator of geothermal energy in Germany with systems in Riem, Freiham, Sendling, Sauerlach, Dürrnhaar and Kirchstockach. According to the economic department, around 50 wells are planned for further expansion in the coming years.
In a city council motion, the Left calls on the economic department and SWM to begin planning the future for the HKW Nord location now, which is located directly behind the city limits in the Unterföhring area. By the end of this year, a comprehensive concept should be presented as to how only renewable energy should be generated on the site in the future. The city should use the time until the end of the gas block’s system relevance for these plans.