Germany: the energy company RWE will close its coal-fired power plants by 2030

“We are going to end the production of electricity from lignite in 2030, twice as fast as expected,” RWE boss Markus Krebber told a press conference.

This decision comes as the government of Olaf Scholz, which wants to be at the forefront of the energy transition in Europe, was forced to temporarily extend the activity of several coal-fired power stations to deal with the energy crisis triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Keeping several power plants in operation until the spring of 2024 does not call into question the objective set by the coalition to phase out coal in 2030.

The announcement on Tuesday by RWE, Germany's largest electricity producer, is intended to embody the desire of the Social Democratic Chancellor, who governs with environmentalists and liberals, to keep to the schedule.

The energy crisis, linked to the drying up of Russian gas which is driving up prices, “focuses all our attention”, but “the structural crisis of our time (…) is undoubtedly global warming”, hammered Mr. Habeck.

In concrete terms, three coal-fired power stations with a capacity of 1,000 MWh each will be shut down by the end of the decade in North Rhine-Westphalia (RNW), a region in the west of the country regularly targeted by actions by environmental activists against the extension of giant surface coal mines.

This will save 280 million tonnes of CO2, said the Ecologist Minister of the Economy, Robert Habeck, during this press conference.

In this respect, the inhabitants of Lützerath, a municipality in the Rhine mining area condemned for a long time to disappear to allow the neighboring open-pit mine of Gazrweiler to expand, will ultimately be able to preserve their habitat, declared the Minister of Economy of the RNW region Nona Neubaur.

In the meantime, RWE's power plants will contribute to guaranteeing the security of the electricity supply of Europe's largest economy, hitherto highly dependent on Russian gas.

Two RWE lignite-fired power plants, each with a capacity of 600 megawatts, will remain in operation until 2024, when they were to stop operating at the end of 2022 according to initial plans.

"The faster exit from coal can be successful... if we have a massive expansion of renewable networks," added Mr Krebber, whose group, which has ranked at the top of Europe's biggest polluters in recent years , has made the shift to clean energy sources.

RWE wants to invest more than 50 billion euros worldwide by 2030 in order to accelerate the energy transition. Some 15 billion euros of investment are planned for Germany, explained the group.