Plans announced by Germany, Austria, France and the Netherlands to increase coal-fired power generation in the event of a sudden cut in Russian gas supplies would have only a limited impact on the European Union’s CO2 emissions, says a report published by the think tank Ember on Wednesday 13 July.
Even in the most pessimistic scenario, where mobilised coal-fired power plants would operate at their maximum level throughout 2023, net additional CO2 emissions would be around 30 million tonnes, Ember estimates, which represents only 1.3% of total EU CO2 emissions in 2021 and 4% of annual emissions from the electricity sector.
Based on Member States’ announcements, the report highlights that 14 GW of coal-fired power plants could be mobilised, adding 1.5% to the total installed electricity generation capacity in the EU (920 GW). The majority is in Germany, which has approved 8 GW of spare capacity.
Operating at 65% capacity throughout 2023, these plants would collectively produce 60 TWh of coal-fired electricity.
These results do not prevent Ember from criticising the EU, which “finds itself in this urgent situation due to past energy policy mistakes”.
“Despite numerous warning signs, EU member states ignored the risks of over-reliance on imported gas and neglected the need to rapidly replace this with domestic renewables”, said Sarah Brown, Senior Analyst at Ember.
See the report: https://aeur.eu/f/2m7 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)