While Germany is ramping up mothballed coal-fired power plants to cut gas, Brussels is backing down on plans to ban Russia from the marine insurance market.
Brussels/Vienna. At first glance, the situation looks paradoxical: While Germany has officially stopped purchasing coal from Russia since yesterday, Monday, the first coal-fired power plant from the Federal Republic’s reserve went back on the grid on the very same day. The plant in Lower Saxony, which belongs to the Czech energy group EPH, was only mothballed in December 2021 – now the 690 megawatts generated there are to be used to supply around 500,000 households with electricity. The Steag and Uniper groups are also checking the startup of their decommissioned generators, which have a total capacity of around 4500 megawatts. The purpose of the undertaking is the fastest possible end to the generation of electricity from natural gas, which is likely to remain extremely scarce and exorbitantly expensive for the foreseeable future. Most recently, gas was still responsible for 11.2 percent of German electricity generation.
If Germany and the EU want to get through the winter relatively unscathed, they must do everything possible to compensate for the expected loss of deliveries from Russia. The war-related decoupling of European economies from Russian energy sources is progressing, but the road to independence from dictator Vladimir Putin is long and bumpy. When it comes to coal, the exit is relatively easy because, firstly, it is still being mined in Europe, secondly, potential major suppliers such as Australia or South Africa are ready, and thirdly, the EU members have built high coal heaps before the EU-wide embargo is about to come into force on August 10th. In June they imported 1.7 million tons from Russia, in May it was just under 3.4 million tons.