BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Following the shutdown of several coal-fired power plants, Economics Minister Robert Habeck still considers Germany's energy supply to be secure and more independent than before the war in Ukraine. "Several coal-fired power plants that were still on the grid as a precautionary measure over the last two years are therefore now superfluous and can be taken off the grid for good," the Green politician told the German Press Agency on Monday. The prices for electricity and gas have fallen significantly and the majority of electricity now comes from "clean, climate-friendly sources" thanks to the expansion of renewable energies, said Habeck.

Over Easter, the plug was pulled on several power plants which, according to original plans, should no longer be in operation: At the turn of the month, several lignite-fired power plants were shut down for good. A total of seven power plant units were shut down in the Rhenish mining area and in Brandenburg, as confirmed by the energy companies RWE and Leag on Easter Sunday. These units had a total capacity of around 3.1 gigawatts.

In addition, eight medium-sized and smaller hard coal-fired power plants with a total output of 1.3 gigawatts were permanently taken off the grid, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Monday, citing information from the Federal Network Agency. These plants had also temporarily produced electricity again in order to reduce gas consumption over the past two years. These include the Mehrum coal-fired power plant in the district of Peine.

Blocks were actually supposed to be taken off the grid earlier

The decommissioning of the power plants had actually been planned earlier. However, after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Germany had to become independent of Russian gas: As a result, the German government left several coal-fired power plant units running longer than planned or took them out of reserve to use them for power generation and save natural gas. However, this will finally come to an end at the end of winter 2023/24.

Due to the significant expansion of renewable energies and the stabilization of the gas supply situation, the continued operation of the power plant units is "neither necessary nor economical", according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

According to the Federal Network Agency, electricity generation plants with a total capacity of 245 gigawatts were on the market in Germany in November. Renewable energy sources accounted for around 159 gigawatts of this.

Kathrin Henneberger, member of the Green Party in the Bundestag, said in a statement: "In view of the worsening climate crisis, the decommissioning of coal-fired power plants is an important measure to reduce greenhouse gases."

Additional emissions are to be offset

The Federal Ministry of Economics is legally obliged to examine how much additional greenhouse gas has been emitted by the continued operation of coal-fired power plants. It has until the end of June to make proposals as to what measures can be taken to offset these additional emissions.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs pointed out that despite the additional coal-fired power generation, this has fallen to a record low since the 1960s and that CO2 emissions in the energy sector nevertheless fell by 20 percent last year./swe/DP/he