German ‘eco-friendly’ gas power plant set to be idled for third successive year

Irsching 4 gas power plant, Bavaria [image credit: E.ON]

Billed as ‘the world’s most eco-friendly fossil fuelled power plant’ when it opened in 2011, the owners say Irsching is not commercially viable due to the built-in advantages handed to part-time subsidised renewables. Meanwhile Germany continues building cheaper-to-run coal-fired power stations to help replace its nuclear fleet. A strange situation to be in.

German utility Uniper announced on Thursday that it had applied to extend the closure of its loss-making Irsching 4 and 5 gas-fired power generation plants with a capacity of 1400 MW for a third year beyond April 2019, reports PEI.

Uniper and the other owners of unit 5, N-Ergie, Mainova MNVG.DE and HSE, see no way to ensure the Bavarian plant’s commercial viability, it said in a statement.

Likewise, Uniper as sole owner of Irsching 4 also wants to apply for temporary closure in the same period for the same reason, it said.

Due to competition from subsidised solar and wind energy, many German fossil fuels plants are running at a fraction of the time needed to be profitable.

The wish to idle plants against a fee needs signalling to the energy regulator with a notice period of 12 months in advance, in order to establish whether this poses a risk to the stability of power transport grids.

A world-record efficiency of 60.4 per cent and low nitrogen oxide emissions were to make the plant the world’s most eco-friendly fossil fuelled power plant, according to Siemens at the time.

The manufacturer describes the plant as characterized by high operating flexibility, and short startup and fast load-cycling capability – features increasingly important with the rise in wind-based generation.

Full report here.