Coal news and updates

Difficult market conditions have accelerated the much-hyped closures of a string of coal-fired power units in the U.S., but the phenomenon is extending overseas, gripping plants in Australia and Germany.

 

In the wake of the Paris agreement in December 2015, a number of governments have moved to phase out coal-fired generation. This October, France, which gets a mere 3% of its power from coal, said it would shut down all its remaining coal plants by 2023. Then, in early November, Canada’s Liberal government announced a nationwide phase-out of coal power without carbon capture and storage by 2030, though it later allowed the province of Saskatchewan to keep running coal plants under an equivalency agreement. The move echoed the UK’s intentions, announced nearly a year before, to shutter all unabated coal power plants by 2025 and restrict their usage from 2023. Then, in November 2016, Finland also announced a plan to phase out all coal burning by 2030, noting that coal-fired power made up about 7% of the Nordic country’s generation in 2015. Finally, a non-binding motion by the Dutch parliament in September 2016 to cut the country’s carbon emissions 55% by 2030 has spurred lawmakers to contemplate retiring five remaining coal units in the Netherlands.

 

In addition to these policy shifts, coal plants are also suffering economically in several countries, forcing their premature retirement.

 

In November, French firm ENGIE, which has publicized a strategy to gradually end its coal activities, announced it would close the 1.6-GW Hazelwood coal generating station (Figure 5) and an adjoining mine in Victoria, Australia’s most densely populated state, by the end of March 2017. Among the reasons for its decision to shutter the plant are that it has been operating in “difficult market conditions with lower electricity prices and a surplus of electricity supply” in Victoria.

 

5. End of an era. The 1.6-GW Hazelwood power plant in Australia’s southeastern state of Victoria has produced power from coal, extracted from an adjoining mine, since the 1960s. Owner ENGIE in November announced the plant would close at the end of March 2017, citing a strategy to end its coal activities globally. However, it also noted that the station has been operating in “difficult market conditions, with lower electricity prices and a surplus of electricity supply in Victoria State.” Courtesy: ENGIE

Source:powermag