The recommendation from the Commission for Growth, Structural Change and Employment to shut down half of the lignite power station capacity by 2030 and to completely end electricity generation with domestic lignite by 2038 will prematurely take away an important source of energy from Germany as an industrial centre. It will also penetrate deep into the social fabric and value creation of the lignite mining areas. The recommendation would result in Germany ending electricity generation from coal around ten years earlier than planned in the regions. The German Lignite Industry Association (DEBRIV) in Berlin/Germany is appealing to the federal government to review, with the participation of all those affected, the present recommendations from the perspective of reliably supplying Germany with energy.
According to DEBRIV, the commission is intervening excessively in regional plans. Many technically well-founded, economically reasonable compromises that would benefit the regions as put forward by industry, unions and federal states have not been adopted. Even without these rulings, electricity generation from lignite would still end in Germany by 2050 at the latest according to company plans. “We should seriously reconsider prematurely sacrificing a competitive branch of industry for the political objective of climate protection, especially given the fact that this branch of industry is responsible for less than 0.5 % of global CO2 emissions and its sacrifice would therefore actually contribute very little towards climate protection,” explained Managing Director of DEBRIV Thorsten Diercks in Berlin after the commission’s recommendations were published.
More detailed evaluation of the rulings will only be possible after deeper analysis. DEBRIV would like to thank representatives of economy, the unions and the regions for bringing their expertise on energy economy to the commission’s work with technical feedback specific to the regions. (DEBRIV/Si.)
