EnBW to Shut Four German Power Plants

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - German energy company, Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW) (Karlsruhe, Germany), has announced plans to shut down four conventional power stations as they are too expensive to run.

The company plans to shut the oil-fired co-generation Unit III and gas turbine III at the Marbach site and the hard coal power stations 1 and 2 in Walheim "at the earliest legally possible date." The plants have a combined generating capacity of 668 megawatts (MW). EnBW said it has informed the transmission system operators (TSOs) and the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA), who will perform an electricity security review and advise when the power plant units can be shut down.

"Rapid structural change in the energy sector forms the background to this decision," EnBW stated. "As a result of the marked additional construction of renewable energy sources, numerous fossil plant are exposed to great commercial and financial pressure, and frequently continue to be operated solely as "marginal power plants". This is resulting in a drastic fall in revenue, especially for gas power stations but also older coal power plants and oil-fired systems which can no longer cover their full costs given today's electricity market prices, and can consequently not be operated on a commercially viable basis."

Marbach's co-generation Unit III comprises a heating oil-fired, steam turbine producing 262 MW and the gas turbine with 85 MW, and was commissioned in 1975, while the gas turbine Unit II on site with a generation capacity of 77 MW was commissioned in 1971. At Walheim, the hard coal-fired Unit I (96 MW) was commissioned in 1964, with the 148-MW Unit II coming online three years later in 1967.

EnBW currently generates around 4,290 MW from conventional power plants located in the Baden-Württemberg region. It is currently commissioning the modern RDK 8 hard coal power plant in Karlsruhe with around 900 MW of capacity. In Mannheim, a further hard coal power plant (GKM 9) -- in which EnBW holds an interest -- is being constructed.

EnBW was one of the four companies badly affected by the German government's decision in 2011 to pull the plug on nuclear power. For additional information, see May 30, 2011, article - Germany Votes to Dump Nuclear Power.

E.ON and RWE vowed to fight the decision in the courts and are seeking billions of euro in compensation. For additional information, see June 15, 2012, article - E.ON Seeks €8 Billion from German Government. However, last year, EnBW said due to its 'unusual ownership structure' it would be unable to take similar action.

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