Fossil Gas
Europe’s continued reliance on fossil gas comes at a staggering cost. The extraction, transportation and burning of this fuel not only contribute to climate change and thousands of premature deaths each year, but also drive energy poverty, and make us vulnerableĀ because of our heavy dependence on imports. Despite these warnings, many countries in Europe plan to increase their fossil gas capacity in the electricity sector. This is diverting crucial investments away from renewable energy solutions that are vital for cutting bills, safeguarding our health, and securing a prosperous future for our children. It is imperative that we swiftly prioritise the phaseout of fossil gas and redirect our resources towards clean and sustainable alternatives so that we take back control of our energy supplies, and address the biggest crisis of our age: the climate emergency.
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Greeceās coal exit accelerates from 2028 to 2026
Greek utility PPC plans to shut down remaining coal operations by 2026, effectively moving Greeceās coal exit forward by two years.Ā
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Slovakia moves coal exit forward from 2030 to 2024
With Vojanyās (220 MW) retirement date set for 2024 and the closures of Teko (121 MW), Zvolenska (19 MW), and Novaky (220 MW), Slovakia moves its coal exit coal forward by six years.
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Austria retains coal-free status
Austria reinstates its coal-free status after an emergency measure to reopen the mothballed Mellach coal plant (246 MW) in June 2022 failed to move ahead due to the cost burden it wouldāve placed on taxpayers.
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Utility Enel announces retirements of all coal plants in Italy by 2025 except Sulcis
Fusina (640 MW) will close by the end of 2023, replaced by a new gas plant in August 2024.Ā Torrevaldaliga Nord (1980 MW) will retire by 2025.Ā Sulcisā (590 MW) closure was pushed back to 2027 due to delayed interconnections with Italyās mainland.
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Italy, Hungary, and North Macedonia delay coal exits
Italy, 2025 to 2027: All coal plants in Italy plan to close by 2025 except Sulcis (590 MW) on Sardinia. Delayed interconnections threaten to push back Sulcisā closure to 2027, and as a consequence, Italy’s national coal phase-out to the same year.Ā Hungary, 2025 to 2027: The Hungarian government extended its last remaining coal plantās (Matra 884 MW) closure date until a new combined cycle gas turbine power plant – slated to enter operation in 2027 at the earliest – is ready to replace it, thereby pushing their coal exit until 2027.Ā North Macedonia, 2027 to 2030: In November 2023, the Minister of Economy Kreshnik Bekteshi backtracked on the countryās PPCA coal phase-out commitment of 2027, saying North Macedonia has āset an ambitious goaI to completely reduce and exclude the use of coal for electricity production by 2030ā.
*How the German coal exit translates to our countdown
Though the end date for coal is foreseen in 2038 only, the law does retire approximately 23 GW prior to 2030. For lignite plants, a plant-specific phaseout pathway exists, but for hard coal, the law does not explicitly state which plants shall retire when, as the closure pathway shall be defined through auctions first. In order to reflect that, according to the law, all but 8 GW of German hard coal capacity will retire by 2030, we made assumptions on which hard coal plants would retire before 2030 to align the hard coal closure path with our counterās methodology, which only registers retirements when the exact coal plant is known.
In December 2020, a set of three hard coal plants that, according to our evaluation, were implicitly intended to retire after 2030 (mostly because of their young age), unexpectedly won in the first auction that determines hard coal retirements. As a result, we added it to the list of plants that are to retire by 2030 at the latest. At the same time, we did not assume that other plants are now set to retire later, i.e. after 2030, just to fulfill the intended phase-out pathway of the German law. Instead, the list of plants set to retire by 2030 grew by three. This leads to a new setup with less than the 8 GW of hard coal capacity that are described in the law will be left after 2030. In short: we anticipate a quicker phase-out of German hard coal capacity.
Despite RWE's announcement in 2022 that it plans to exit coal by 2030, the federal government has the authority to retain some of RWE's coal units as grid reserve beyond 2030. We have therefore not yet included the plants covered by RWE's announcement in the list of coal plants scheduled to retire by 2030 at the latest.