Three more German coal plants to retire before end of 2021

Two German hard coal power stations and one small-scale lignite plant will stop selling electricity by the end of 2021, as their bids to end operations under the coal exit tenders were successful in the second round of auctions.

The plants have a combined capacity of 1,514 megawatts and are located in the Northern, middle and Eastern parts of the country. They participated in the second round of auctions held according to Germany’s coal exit legislation that aims to have coal power phased out by 2038 at the latest.

Bids for payments to end operations ranged from zero to 59,000 euros per megawatt, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) in charge of the process said. The maximum bidding price had been limited to 155,000 euros per megawatt.

“The tender was again oversubscribed,” said Jochen Homann, president of the Federal Network Agency. “The highest award is significantly below the legal maximum price.” As a final step, transmission grid operators check whether the successful plants are relevant to the stability of the power system – only if this is not the case will they be permitted to retire entirely.

In the first round of auctions, 11 plants with a combined capacity of almost five gigawatts were initially permitted to retire. However, grid operators later said that they would need three of them, situated in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, to stay online as backup capacity. The grid agency’s final evaluation on this will be completed by June.

Source: Clean Energy Wire.