Germany starts up new 1.1 GW coal power station

Energy company Uniper has announced that its highly controversial Datteln 4 coal-powered plant will go online in January 2020, thus ignoring the proposal of Germany’s coal commission. The decision is an embarrassing development for the German government, which after months of delays and negotiations over possible compensation payments for utilities has still not put the recommendations of its coal commission into law.

“Germany is the EU’s largest greenhouse gas emitter and must phase out all coal from its electricity sector by 2030 to be able to respect the UN Paris climate agreement. Allowing Datteln 4 to go online not only undermines the coal commission’s already inadequate coal exit proposal, it also shows how unprepared the German government is to answer the call for climate action made by the 1.4 million people that took to the streets in Germany during the Global Climate Strikes in September. None of these people will believe they have been heard by their government,” said Kathrin Gutmann, Europe Beyond Coal campaign director.

Uniper has long held that the German coal commission’s recommendation of a 2038 total coal phase-out justifies the introduction of its 1.1 gigawatt, 1.5 billion euro plant, despite the commission’s explicit recommendation that no new coal power plants should go online. Germany is the only country in Europe to announce a coal phase-out that is not Paris-compliant.

Source: www.beyond-coal.eu

Europe Beyond Coal is an alliance of civil society groups working to catalyse the closures of coal mines and power plants, prevent the building of any new coal projects and hasten the just transition to clean, renewable energy and energy efficiency. Our groups are devoting their time, energy and resources to this independent campaign to make Europe coal free by 2030 or sooner.