Two Hamburg power plants say goodbye to gas

In "normal times" such a decision would have been unthinkable, especially for a Green Senator for the Environment. Jens Kerstan, President of the Hamburg Environment and Energy Agency, made that very clear himself. He had just announced that two of Hamburg's power plants, namely the Tiefstack thermal power plant and the Haferweg heating plant, would be converted from gas to oil operation. Oil is already being bunkered, Kerstan announced to a surprised audience in the town hall.

The two power plants are connected to the district heating network of the Hanseatic city. Each of the two locations has three heating boilers, each with an output of 50 megawatts, which are switched on at peak loads. So far they have been powered by gas. However, according to Kerstan, that will not happen in the coming heating period. "The two power plants will not use any gas this winter."

Because in order for Hamburg to be able to meet its obligation to save at least 15 percent of its gas consumption, drastic measures have to be taken. A third of the 21 terawatt hours of gas used in Hamburg each year are consumed by large-scale industry – with little influence on the part of the Senate. The companies have recently reduced their consumption by 39 percent compared to 2020 and 2021. However, according to Kerstan, this is partly due to lower demand for their products.

So it's now about the gas consumption for district heating generation, which has been in the hands of the city again for several years.

Kerstan actually wanted to get rid of fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Highly innovative projects are underway at several locations in the city to replace the old coal-fired power plant in Wedel with decentralized units that generate district heating from renewable energy. The Tiefstack power plant, which serves the base load of district heating from coal firing, was to be quickly converted to gas and, in the long term, to biomass.

Kerstan obviously finds it difficult to go back to oil. "Some things hurt me," he said when asked. But now he is “just doing what needs to be done.” And that is to secure the heat supply for the coming winter. He doesn't want to imagine the ruptures that would occur within society if it got cold in the homes of many Hamburgers in winter.

The opposition showed little understanding for the needs of the green environment senator on Tuesday. "The red-green Senate should have reactivated the Moorburg power plant, which the CDU applied for in April," said Dennis Thering, head of the CDU parliamentary group in Hamburg's parliament. “Massive potential was wasted here.” It remains the “core error” of the Senate “to have shut down the most modern coal-fired power plant in Europe with Moorburg. If that hadn't happened, we would have less of a supply problem," said FDP politician Anna von Treuenfels Frowein.

The power plant was originally built to supply Hamburg with electricity and district heating, but was never connected to the district heating network. Because it never reached its potential utilization and was not economically interesting enough, the operator Vattenfall shut it down. The Senate is planning a production facility for green hydrogen at the site.