Germany sticks to coal exit by 2030 amid energy jitters
BERLIN — The German government said this week that it remains committed to its goal of phasing out coal as a power source by 2030, despite deepening worries about a cut in Russia’s gas supplies.
Russia’s Gazprom announced last week that it was sharply reducing supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany for what it said were technical reasons. The German government says the move appears to be politically motivated.
On Sunday, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said that Germany will try to compensate for the move by allowing increased burning of coal, a more polluting fossil fuel.
Habeck, a member of the Green party, said the move was “bitter” but “simply necessary” to lower gas usage.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party government committed itself to completing the phaseout of coal “ideally” by 2030 in its coalition agreement late last year.
Asked Monday to what extent that is now in doubt, a spokesman for Habeck’s ministry said that “the coal exit in 2030 isn’t wobbling at all.”
“It is more important than ever that it happens in 2030 — that is our view,” spokesman Stephan Gabriel Haufe told reporters in Berlin.
Germany has relied heavily on energy imports from Russia for decades.
Last year, Russian imports accounted for 55% of the country’s natural gas supply.
But after Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Berlin began purchasing gas from Norway, the United States and the United Arab Emirates, reducing its purchases from Russia by about 20%.
The government has insisted that Russian gas will be needed to ensure storage tanks are at least 90% full by November — in keeping with a law passed earlier this year to ensure a sufficient supply of natural gas, which is used largely for heating and manufacturing. One-third of Germany’s homes are heated with natural gas, while it is used for only about 15% of all electricity generation.
A law allowing a return to the use of coal in power generation is expected to pass next month. By the end of the summer, a model should be in place that would allow companies to auction gas, as part of efforts to encourage Germany’s industrial sector to reduce its reliance on the fuel.
In the neighboring Netherlands, the government announced Monday that despite Moscow’s reductions in gas deliveries to parts of Europe it still plans to close the biggest Dutch natural gas field in 2023 or 2024, but will also allow coal-fired power stations to operate at full capacity again in order to conserve gas that would otherwise be burned to produce electricity.
The government had been phasing out the use of coal to generate power by allowing coal-fired power stations to operate only to a maximum 35% of their capacity in recent years as it aims to transition to sustainable energy to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
“The risk of doing nothing is too great,” Climate and Energy Minister Rob Jetten said as he also appealed to businesses and homeowners to do all they can now to rein in their use of gas to prevent shortages in the winter.