As the ministry of economics and energy has published last week, an according with the producers of electricity from lignite power plants has been found, to start a partial phase out.

Lignite Power Plant / Marco Barnebeck -Pixelio
© Marco Barnebeck - Pixelio

The lignite power plants from the companies Mibrag, RWE and Vattenfall with a total capacity of 2.7 Gigawatt ( 2% of the conventional power plants) will be phased out partially starting in 2016, so the Ministry in a press release (in German). These power plants will remain for 4 years as security capacity for the electricity supply. After that the power plants will be shut down finally. The power plant owner are reimbursed for the security supply and the final shut down. The estimated total costs are 230 Mio. Euro per year over seven years. This is equal to an increase of the grid fees of 0.05 Cent per kWh.

The shut down of 2.7 Gigawatt of lignite capacity are expected to reduce the CO2 emissions up to 11 to12,5 Mio. tonnes in the year 2020. This reduction is necessary to reach the national climate goals.  First price reactions are already seen in the wholesale market, as CEEN has reported.