BERLIN: The German coalition government has said they will mothball 2700 megawatts of pollution intensive brown coal power plants by 2020. This would be equivalent to shutting down Victoria’s largest coal power generator Loy Yang A, alongside an additional smaller coal generator.
As part of the deal however, the government agreed to dump a plan to place a levy on the most emissions intensive coal power plants in the country.
In addition these plants will be kept in reserve to be drawn upon if a power shortage looked likely. In response to intense lobbying from power companies the government will establish a ‘capacity reserve’ system where power generators will be paid to provide generating capacity even if it is not used, to sit in reserve to cope with circumstances where power shortages might emerge due to for example low power output from wind or solar generators.
“We need a capacity reserve on the power market in case there are shortages due to the switch to renewables. The reserve will be made up of brown coal,” economy minister Sigmar Gabriel told ARD television.
