The European Commission has agreed that Germany should be allowed to pay the energy giant RWE some €2.6 billion in state aid for the early closure of coal power stations. Under German law, no more electricity is to be produced from coal from 2038 onward. However, this new agreement moves the date forward to 2030.
Campaigners had been pushing for the site in Merthyr Tydfil to close since its planning permission expired in September last year after 15 years.
“From a coal perspective, it has been a disaster,” said Andy Blumenfeld, an analyst who tracks the industry at McCloskey by OPIS. “The decline is happening faster than anyone anticipated.”
The move is the nation’s largest-ever emissions reduction effort and is expected to take the equivalent of 300,000 cars off the road.
The temporary pause in the growth of the dirty fuel was hailed by energy experts as a positive step for a country that is currently reliant on coal for around 75% of its electricity.
By the end of 2026, based on current announcements from utilities, coal capacity will fall to 159 gigawatts (GW), down from its peak of 318GW in 2011.
Lignite mining in the Slovak Upper Nitra region is coming to an end as the last two coal mines will close by the end of 2023 following the government’s plans to stop subsidies for domestic mining.
The coal-fired Loy Yang A power station near Melbourne – responsible for more than three percent of the country’s emissions – will shut down in 2035, a decade earlier than planned.
Two planned coal-fired power plants, one in Indonesia and the other in Bangladesh, have had their funding withdrawn by the Japanese government, as part of Tokyo’s decision to no longer bankroll coal projects in either country.
The plan offers support to impacted workers and communities, lays the groundwork for a clean energy future, and results in a nearly 90 percent reduction in Xcel’s Colorado carbon emissions.
