Coal Power Under Fire in Europe

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - Coal-fired power plants are under the spotlight again as Denmark and Germany look at dramatically reducing the use of coal in their electricity mix.

Denmark has launched an investigation into how it can become coal-free by 2025, five years earlier than original proposals, while Germany's government is looking at removing some coal-capacity from its mix to meet emissions targets.

Denmark's Climate and Energy Minister, Rasmus Helveg Petersen, announced that he wants to accelerate the removal of coal from the country's energy mix within a decade. Coal accounts for around 20% of Denmark's energy. Another 40% is supplied by oil and gas with the remaining 30% coming from windfarms. Denmark wants wind power to supply 50% of its electricity by the end of the decade.

"There's no longer a scenario where we would be able to continue using coal," Petersen explained. "Of course this is something we will do together with the industry. I don't know how we can reach this goal, but I would like to find out if we, for example, can forbid using coal. It would benefit the climate and it would be a very, very good signal to send."

Danish Energy, the industry association representing Danish energy companies, said the country will not be able to do without coal and instead called for the government to look at limiting the amount of pollution permits granted to plants under the E.U.'s Emission Trading System (ETS).

Lars Aagaard, director for Danish Energy, told EurActiv: "The Climate Minister won't succeed with a call for phasing out coal in Europe. It's not possible. A big part of the European energy supply is deeply dependent on coal, and will continue to be so for years to come".

In Germany, the government is discussing plans that could see the introduction of tighter emissions controls for coal-fired plants as well as the idling of a significant number of coal plants. The move comes after the government was warned that it may miss its ambitious goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2020 from 1990 levels by up to 8%.

An economy ministry government claimed that nothing has been decided yet and that any changes to the coal-fired network could take years to implement. Despite Germany being one of Europe's largest proponents of renewable energy coal still supplies around 45% of its electricity. Gas supplies an additional 11%, nuclear power 15% and renewables around 24%.

In September, the country's Environment Ministry announced plans to limit the amount of investment that the state-owned development bank, KfW, can invest into coal-fired projects outside of the country. For additional information, see September 26, 2014, article - Germany Cutting Aid for Foreign Coal Power Plants.

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