Statkraft Evaluates Future of Two Gas-Fired Plants in Germany

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources Europe (Galway, Ireland)--Norwegian state-owned utility Statkraft AS (Oslo, Norway) has dismissed claims in the German press that it is to shut down the 452-megawatt (MW) Emden and the 487-MW Landesbergen Robert Frank gas-fired power units. Statkraft is performing an evaluation of the efficiency at both plants; however, no decision on the plants' future will be made until March 2012.

"We have not taken a decision on the two power plants, but there are economic concerns," said Jurgen Tzschoppe, the managing director and senior vice-president of the company's continental energy unit, at a conference in Munich. He also conceded that both power plants have been utilized very little this year. It is speculated that Northern Germany's expanded wind capacity has cut the two plants' annual operating hours from between 1,000 and 2,000 hours to a few hundred hours.

Both the Emden and Robert Frank gas units were constructed in the 1970s and based on older technology, utilizing a natural gas-fired boiler and steam turbine, coupled with a topping combustion turbine, running at an efficiency rate of approximately 40%. Each site also has a 20-MW Biomass CHP unit, which went into operation in 2005 and 2003, respectively; both of these units will continue to operate, regardless of the outcome for the gas units.

Statkraft has been investigating the viability of building a 430-MW, combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant at the Emden site. The decision on whether to proceed with the new plant will be finalized in March of next year.

Statkraft's CCGT units in North Rhein-Westfalia-Herdecke, which is co-owned by Mark-E (Hagen, Germany) and Knapsack, which is undergoing a 580-MW expansion, will continue to operate as normal.

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