Future of fossil fuels? Back-up for renewables by Giles Parkinson

The two largest electricity utilities in Germany – E.ON and RWE – have declared they will build no more fossil fuel generation plants because they are not needed, challenging a widespread belief that the phasing out of nuclear in Europe’s most industrialized economy will require more coal fired generation to be built.

Both E.ON and RWE say the rapid expansion of renewable energy, particularly solar but also wind, would make up for the loss of capacity from nuclear. "We won't be building any more gas and coal power generation plants in western Europe, because the market does not need them," a spokesman for E.ON told reporters at a briefing at the group's headquarters on Friday. RWE made a similar statement a week earlier. A third major operator, Vattenfall, agreed that the market in Western Europe is oversupplied but said some limited capacity may be needed in the southern part of Germany.

The nuclear industry has been trying to ridicule Angela Merkel’s decision to exist nuclear, suggesting that without nuclear, grid operators will simply turn to more polluting energy sources such as coal or gas. Germany is their Exhibit A – where they insist that 20GW of coal fired power will be required to be built to substitute for retired nuclear plant.

But that’s not happening. The only fossil fuel plants that are being built  are those committed to or commenced before the nuclear phase out was announced. And not only do Germany’s two biggest utilities dismiss the need for additional coal or gas capacity, they say that the current fossil fuel generation will ultimately be relegated to a roll of back-up generation for renewables, rather than being called upon to supply “baseload” power. In some cases it is already happening: Indeed, a 2,200MW lignite-fuelled power station opened by RWE this month is designed to act as a sort of peaking plant, with the ability to ramp up (and down) 500MW of capacity within 15 to 30 minutes.