STEAG GmbH, Essen/Germany, is reacting to the tense situation on the energy markets and is postponing the planned conversion of the Herne 4 hard coal fired power plant unit (Figure 1), prospectively until spring 2023. Until then, the plant will remain on the grid and thus make a contribution to ensuring price stability and security of supply, especially beyond the winter of 2022/23.
STEAG has already notified the transmission system operator Amprion and the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) of the planned short-term extension to the service life of the Herne 4 power plant unit and the waiver of early closure of the power plants in Bergkamen and Völklingen-Fenne. Information has also been sent to the transparency unit of the EEX power exchange.
“Security of supply and price stability are two integral cornerstones of the energy industry’s target triangle. By keeping our Herne 4 unit in operation until spring 2023, STEAG is making an important contribution to stabilizing the already highly volatile situation on the energy markets this winter, which now, after the unforeseen geopolitical events of recent days have become even more unpredictable,” Andreas Reichel, Chairman of the STEAG Board of Management, says under the impression of Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
STEAG’s decision has been taken knowing, that supply of controllable energy will decrease further in the coming winter of 2022/23 because the last nuclear power plants in Germany shall be shut down then. In addition, STEAG will not exercise its option to shut down the plants in Bergkamen and Völklingen as early as the summer. All three units will remain online until the end of October 2022.
This decision, guided by overriding market conditions and the unpredictable developments in world politics, does not mean that the previously announced conversion of the Herne 4 power plant unit will be cancelled. “The situation remains the same: Herne 4 will be converted to a natural gas fired boiler, which will in future back up the district heating supply for the highly efficient combined cycle gasturbine power plant currently nearing completion at the same site,” clarifies Ralf Schiele, who is responsible on the STEAG board for the Market and Technology divisions. Only the date of the conversion will prospectively be postponed.
If the German federal government should take into consideration to reschedule the otherwise already fixed dates for permanent decommission of hard coal fired power plants due to the war in Ukraine and it’s indirect impacts on energy production and supply in Germany, STEAG will examine in how far such a term extension is possible both technically and from human resources management’s perspective. “Right now, this is nothing but a theoretical option, we have not had talks about that with federal government, yet,” Reichel ascertains.
For the near future, STEAG is relying on natural gas as a bridging technology and on hydrogen as an energy source in the long term. “Both in the Ruhr and on the Saar, at the Duisburg-Walsum and Völklingen-Fenne power plant sites, we are developing hydrogen projects that will contribute to decarbonization, especially of the steel industry,” says Reichel. The combined cycle power plant soon to come on stream in Herne is emblematic of this strategy. It can already co-fire up to 15 % hydrogen. In the future, after a successful ramp-up of the hydrogen economy in Germany and Europe, there will be the option of upgrading it so that it can be completely converted to the emission-free energy source. (STEAG/Si.)
In Montecchio Emilia in northern Italy, STEAG Solar Energy Solutions GmbH (SENS), WĂĽrzburg/Germany, is planning and constructing a further solar farm on the site of a former quarry for the investor KGAL Investment Management GmbH & Co KG (Figure 1). The plant will be completed in the coming months and will have a capacity of 17 MWp. This means that the new solar farm will be able to supply the region with around 25 M kWh/a of green electricity. With up to 10 h/d of sunshine, the region is an ideal location for generating power using photovoltaics (PV). The Italian subsidiary SENS Italia is responsible for implementing the project.
Since the investor KGAL and SENS can already look back on several successful and jointly implemented PV projects, initiation of the project took place in a record-breaking four weeks from the first meeting to conclusion of the contract. In addition to the relationship of mutual confidence and trust that the two partners share as a result of their many years of cooperation, this is primarily due to the support provided by the legal advisors DWF (for SENS) and Orrick (for KGAL).
“We are once again delighted with the professional and extremely rapid preparation by the SENS team,” says Michael Ebner, Director of Sustainable Infrastructure at KGAL. For KGAL and SENS, the project represents a continuation of their long-standing partnership. The two companies have already worked together successfully, e. g., in Italy and Spain.
Construction of the project was scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2022. SENS Italia will act as the project developer and EPC partner until completion at the end of the year. That means that in addition to designing the project, the solar experts at the Italian SENS subsidiary will also take care of the turnkey construction of the solar farm and the subsequent operation of the plant. The latter also includes the plant management, feeding of the renewable energy into the regional power grid and subsequent operation and maintenance services.
When the solar farm is connected to an existing substation, the Emilia Romagna region in northern Italy will in future benefit from 25 M kWh/a of electricity generated from a renewable source. This PV farm alone will save around 6,250 t/a of climate-damaging CO2Â emissions.
The new PV plant in Montecchio Emilia is a special success for the Italian staff and the SENS team as a whole. This is because SENS was awarded a subsidized tariff for the plant in an auction held by the Italian government. This success not only confirms the good prospects of the solar farm itself, but at the same time underlines the high regard in which SENS is held as a developer of ambitious PV projects in Southern Europe. This is also reflected in the fact that so far there are only a few PV plants of this size in Italy that have been developed to the construction stage with the help of a subsidized tariff.
However, the current project in Montecchio Emilia is only an intermediate step on the way to achieving much more ambitious expansion targets. In the next few years, another nearby construction phase will follow, as will other SENS projects in surrounding districts and regions with a total capacity of around 60 MWp. When these are completed, the plants in the region will have a total power generation from renewable energy sources of around 100Â M kWh/a.
“With this project pipeline, we are getting closer and closer to the establishment of the first gigawatt of capacity in Italy,” explains Sarah Herresthal, Managing Director of SENS Italia. “I am incredibly proud of the entire team, which is working day after day to ensure that the expansion of renewables in Italy continues to progress. This will also allow us to reach our goal of building another 3 GWp of capacity across Italy by 2025,” says the SENS country manager, looking forward to the impending projects. (STEAG/Si.)
STEAG Solar Energy Solutions GmbH (SENS), Würzburg/Germany, a subsidiary of Essen-based energy company STEAG GmbH and a specialist for photovoltaic (PV) projects, will be building a solar farm with output of 50 MWp in the eastern English county of Norfolk in the months ahead (Figure 1). The permission to build the facility on previously agricultural farmland near the town of King’s Lynn has just recently been granted. In addition to the solar plant, the project includes a coupled storage system for temporary storage of up to 15 MWh of green energy.
SENS UK, the British national subsidiary of SENS, is cooperating in this project with Namene Solar Light Company Ltd, an internationally-based provider of solar technology and services. Together, the partners will construct the solar park on farmland that was previously used for intensive farming. “The project will therefore not only provide climate-friendly energy, but will also give the soil on which the plant is built the chance to regenerate,” says Christian Kleinhans, who is responsible for the project at SENS.
With a calculated yield of 55 GWh/a, the new solar farm will be able to supply around 14,700 British households with zero-emission green electricity in the future, avoiding around 11,700 t/a in CO2 emissions. “Thanks to the coupled electricity storage system, solar energy can be temporarily stored during periods of weaker demand and made available at a later time when demand is high or when there is less sunlight,” Kleinhans explains. The entire plant is designed for a service life of 40 years.
It is not purely the energy yield that sets the project apart, but also its comprehensive sustainability approach. In cooperation with the Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk, a management plan is being developed that will provide for additional ecological measures on and around the site. “One of the plans is to plant a hedge about 1 km long around the solar farm, providing habitat for a wide variety of animal and plant species,” Kleinhans continues, highlighting that the PV system would thus also contribute to increasing local biodiversity. “Flower strips with wildflowers are also part of the ecological concept for the site,” he adds.
For SENS, the new UK project is only the prelude to further activities. Together with its project partner Namene Solar, the company intends to add a further 200 MW of solar generating capacity to the UK grid over the coming two years.
SENS has been operating on the British market for many years now and has already carried out a number of large-scale projects as O&M provider. This renders the solar experts predestined for making a relevant contribution to achieving the British government’s climate goals, which include a 78 % cut in CO2 emissions by 2035 compared with 1990s levels. This goal can only be achieved with a further significant expansion of solar energy – a task which, according to opinion polls, meets the approval of around 80 % of Britons. (STEAG/Si.)
STEAG GmbH, Essen/Germany (Figure 1), presents encouraging key figures at the end of the third quarter of the current business year. Both sales and group EBIT are above the previous year’s level. In 2020, the energy company still had to cope with a difficult year owing to extraordinary burdens from the phasing out of coal and a process of transformation initiated within STEAG itself.
The current business figures confirm the favorable development of the long-established energy company in several respects, following a challenging phase of realignment. In addition to the general economic upheavals caused by the coronavirus pandemic, STEAG had in particular to cope with the effects of the phase-out of energy generation from coal in Germany, which was set down in law in 2020, as well as the costs of a far-reaching restructuring program. Overall, this will result in the loss of around 1,000 skilled jobs in Germany over the next few years.
At the end of 2019, STEAG had already begun to fundamentally realign itself and orient itself towards the growth and focal markets of tomorrow’s energy world: “We have focussed on our traditional strengths in energy technology and energy management,” says Joachim Rumstadt, Chairman of the Board of Management of STEAG. In the future, the company will focus primarily on solutions for industrial customers in the design, implementation and operation of complex plant technology, renewable energies, decarbonization, and on hydrogen as well as digital energy services.
STEAG has recently joined an international cooperation network that is endeavoring to ramp up a hydrogen economy in the “Grande Region Hydrogen” in Saarland, Luxembourg and the neighboring French region of Lorraine. “The sub-projects that the partners are jointly tackling there in the field of hydrogen are aimed at cutting environmentally harmful CO2 emissions by around 980,000 t/a by 2030,” explains Ralf Schiele, who, as a director of STEAG is responsible for Market and -Technology. The cooperation partners will invest around 600 M € in hydrogen production and the associated transport infrastructure, including around 74 M € for the construction of the “Fenne HydroHub” in Völklingen/Saarland.
That STEAG site with its long tradition is therefore a glowing example of the far-reaching transformation of the energy group. While hydrogen production will open a new chapter for the energy sector and industry in Saarland in the middle of the decade, STEAG’s coal story is likely to come to an end next autumn. “By the end of October 2022 at the latest, there will be only one coal-fired STEAG power plant left on the market in Germany, that being Walsum 10 in Duisburg/North Rhine-Westphalia. This means that we will complete our own coal phase-out far more quickly than many people thought we would,” says Rumstadt. In this respect, STEAG would not be affected by a possible bringing forward of the coal phase-out to 2030, as is currently being considered by the German government.
This is because STEAG has successfully participated in several decommissioning auctions since the end of 2020 in accordance with the Coal-fired Power Generation Termination Act (KVBG). The bids were accepted for a total of four of the company’s power plant units. In addition, STEAG is examining technical and commercial options for a fuel switch from hard coal to biomass or natural gas at the last remaining power plant unit, Walsum 10.
Furthermore, STEAG’s imminent departure from hard coal over and above the power plant closures is also reflected in the sale of the former subsidiary Power Minerals, which specializes in the marketing of power plant by-products. In spring 2021, STEAG sold the previous Group subsidiary to the Czech EPH group. “That was not only another important step in STEAG’s strategic realignment, but the new owner also offers our former colleagues excellent career prospects,” says Andreas Reichel, STEAG’s Human Resources and Industrial Relations director, expressing his satisfaction. Here, as foremost in the case of the jobs to be lost at the power plant sites in the future, it has been possible to find the best possible solutions for the departing employees by reconciling individual interests in cooperation with the employees’ representatives and the trade union. “So far, we have been able to avoid redundancies,” Reichel emphasizes.
This, too, contributes to providing STEAG with new scope for future investments. In addition to the option of switching the type of fuel at the only remaining hard coal unit, Walsum 10, a water electrolysis plant with a capacity of up to 500 MW is also planned at the same site and should make a significant contribution to the decarbonization of Europe’s largest steel site in Duisburg. A few kilometers further east, in Herne, one of the world’s most modern combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plants will come on stream in 2022. “Based on the principle of combined heat and power, this plant will generate not only electricity but also heat and will secure the district heating supply in the central Ruhr region for decades to come,” says Schiele.
In addition, at the Herne power plant site, the switch from the previous energy source of hard coal to natural gas is also associated with a significant reduction in CO2 emissions by more than half. “This reduction in emissions may be even greater in the future because the new CCGT plant is already technically capable of burning a certain proportion of hydrogen,” says Schiele. In the long term, a technical upgrade of the plant is also conceivable, enabling it to operate on hydrogen alone. Furthermore, STEAG is converting the Herne 4 hard coal unit, which will be decommissioned in 2022, into a natural gas-fired boiler that will serve to secure district heating in the future.
All these forward-looking projects contribute to making STEAG economically viable for the future. After all, the future prospects associated with the current projects also played their part in making STEAG able a few weeks ago to arrange follow-up financing with its creditors until the end of 2023 thanks to a clear transformation strategy. “This provides us with the necessary financial leeway to continue resolutely along the transformation path we have successfully embarked on,” says Ralf Schmitz, Chief Transformation Officer at STEAG and in that function also responsible for the company’s finance division. The complex financing negotiations are also the reason why the 2020 annual financial statement could only be published at the end of Novembver 2021.
The favorable business development in the current year is also reflected in the relevant key figures. STEAG’s equity was kept stable at 478.3 M € even in the difficult 2020 financial year. Consolidated equity in accordance with IFRS, which was still at a level of minus 108.9 M € in the 2020 financial year, will be positive again at the end of the 2021 financial year. One-off effects are primarily responsible for this favorable development, but in contrast to 2020, they have had a positive impact in the present financial year. These effects include the contractual agreement with the Austrian energy group EVN on the exit from the operating company of the hard coal fired power plant Walsum 10 and the successful participation in the decommissioning auctions for hard coal fired power plants under the terms of the KVBG. These positive one-off effects made it possible to reduce the STEAG Group’s financial debt by more than 300 M €, or more than one fifth, by the end of the third quarter of 2021.
The first rapid successes from the strategy adopted are also evident in Group sales. After the first nine months of the current business year, this is 12.9 % up on the previous year at 1.6 bn €. At 137.9 M €, the STEAG Group’s EBIT in accordance with IFRS is also 7 % up on the same period last year. It is also well above expectations at the beginning of the current business year. In the light of favorable background conditions, the positive earnings development is expected to continue in the fourth quarter of 2021.
“In principle, we can be satisfied with STEAG’s current development,” Schmitz sums up. The transformation of the company, e. g., that has been initiated has borne fruit much earlier than expected a year ago: “We want to build on this and continue on our path with determination and growing success in the coming years.”
Fig. 2. New Chairman of the Board of Management at STEAG is Andreas Reichel (right). He followed Joachim Rumstadt (left), who stepped down at the end of 2021. Photo: STEAG
After 13 years, there was a change at the top of STEAG: Joachim Rumstadt stepped down as Chairman of the Board of Management at the end of 2021. After around 25 years in the service of the energy company, he would like to take some time out and then turn his attention to new challenges. His successor is STEAG Director Reichel (Figure 2). (STEAG/Si.)
STEAG Solar Energy Solutions GmbH (SENS), WĂĽrzburg/Germany, and the Czech-Dutch company Greenbuddies Energy BV, based in Eindhoven/Netherlands, will in future join forces on the photovoltaic (PV) market in the BeNeLux countries (Figure 1). The aim is to offer ground-mounted PV projects and associated services in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
From the Greenbuddies branch in Eindhoven headed by Jos Schlangen, utility scale projects are to be developed jointly in the future. Currently, the first PV parks are expected to be ready for construction by the beginning of 2023. In the medium term, the partners have set themselves the goal of realising a portfolio of 250Â MWp by 2025. It is envisaged that SENS will plan, develop and build the projects as general contractor (EPC) and subsequently operate them as service provider (O&M).
In this respect, the cooperation with Greenbuddies – development, installation and construction company present on many Western markets of EU – fits perfectly into SENS’ growth strategy. The STEAG subsidiary with its own subsidiaries in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the UK is pursuing ambitious goals in Europe and beyond. Clear evidence of the company’s expansion course is not least the doubling of the number of employees in the last three years. “Against this background, we are always on the lookout for committed partners with a similar mindset. I am very much looking forward to working with the Greenbuddies, who can identify with our “good energy” just as we can,” says Kremer.
Indeed, Greenbuddies and SENS are characterised by a very similar business philosophy. The chemistry between the partners was therefore right from the start. Aleš Spáčil, co-owner and sales manager of Greenbuddies, agrees: “Fortunately, we were immediately on the same wavelength with SENS and look forward to making our contribution to the energy transition in the BeNe-Lux countries together. Our mission is to make our planet greener and more sustainable. This connects our companies and gives us the drive to successfully realise as many projects as possible together.” (STEAG/Si.)
The energy company STEAG GmbH, Essen/Germany, in cooperation with Quadra Energy GmbH, Düsseldorf/Germany, is embarking on the marketing of green electricity. In that venture, STEAG is drawing on its extensive expertise in the field of energy trading with a view to concluding green power purchase agreements (Green PPAs) with operators of generation facilities based on renewable energy sources. STEAG will then use that energy to supply customers or feed into its own projects, i. e. for the production of green hydrogen, which STEAG is planning together with partner companies at the Duisburg-Walsum and Völklingen-Fenne sites.
Whereas energy from renewable sources was previously marketed largely under the terms of the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) in Germany, the market share of green electricity has recently increased significantly. One reason for this is that the EEG funding for new plants is now significantly lower than in previous years. On the other hand, more and more renewable generation facilities are reaching the end of the subsidy period stipulated in the EEG, with the result that their operators are looking for marketing alternatives.
“That’s where we and our partner QUADRA Energy come in,” explains Oliver Welling, who works in the Trading Division at STEAG and is responsible for the Green PPA business there. “We collect the renewables capacities from old and new plants that are no longer subsidized under the EEG regulations or never qualified in the first place, and then market them.”
Project partner QUADRA Energy already has many years of experience in the field of energy management services for operators of renewable energy generation plants: “In addition to the direct marketing of electricity from renewable energy sources with an entitlement to subsidies, green electricity from wind turbines without any funding entitlement is one of our core products. For this purpose, we group together many individual and distributed generation facilities in a large wind pool. In this way, operators obtain a source of income which lasts beyond the subsidy period. QUADRA combines this financial security with bespoke technical plant service to create an all-round carefree package. We are pleased to supply STEAG with electricity from our wind pool,” says Thomas Krings, Head of Sales at QUADRA Energy.
The term of the electricity supply contracts that STEAG and QUADRA are now concluding with plant operators is based on the age of the plants. “In order to extend the service life of older, formerly subsidized plants and thus increase their profitability, we can additionally offer our contractual partners technical services from STEAG,” says Welling.
This mainly involves the artificial intelligence-based systems from STEAG subsidiary STEAG Energy Services for predictive maintenance of wind and photovoltaic plants (Figure 1). “Predictive maintenance is based on a continuous analysis of the operating data of the plants in real time, which provides information in the event of even the smallest deviations, enabling anticipatory intervention and thus averting damage to the plants before it can occur,” says Ralf Schiele, Director for Market and Technology at STEAG.
In addition to the direct marketing of green electricity and its use in the company’s own green hydrogen production, the Green PPA business creates a link to another STEAG project. “STEAG is planning to build an “Energy Cloud” storage facility with a minimum energy storage capacity of 1,000 MWh and a capacity of around 250 MW,” says Christian Karalis, who is the responsible project manager at STEAG. The option of storing green energy temporarily and then using it specifically when there is corresponding demand from customers reduces price risks even further.
But the interaction between Green PPAs and electricity storage has not only economic advantages, but also and above all ecological benefits: “Because supply and demand do not coincide, given the fluctuating nature of generation from wind and solar energy, the supply has to be buffered. This means that it can actually be used by the customer when it is needed. Otherwise, there is a risk of negative electricity prices, including the shutdown of plants for power generation from renewables. The storage solution can save some of this energy which would otherwise be lost,” explains STEAG storage expert Karalis. In addition, customers can be supplied with green energy for many more hours, thus increasing the share of renewable energy overall.
Especially in combination with other technical measures, Green PPAs make an important contribution to the success of the energy transition: “Marketing green electricity in such a way that it is available when it is really needed on the market is an important step on the way to a successful energy transition,” says Schiele. Because that means a significantly better market integration of renewable energy sources than the EEG has been able to achieve so far.
It is precisely this combination of energy management expertise and plant engineering skills that engage in direct marketing: “By having additional options in the form of our hydrogen and storage projects to optimally market the electricity originating from the Green PPAs, we set ourselves apart well from pure electricity traders, because we can offer further stages of the value chain from a single source,” says Welling. (STEAG/Si.)
The Energy company STEAG GmbH, Essen/Germany, notified on 30th March 2021 the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) of the provisional closure of the Völklingen Model Power Plant (MKV) unit in the Saarland (Figure 1). This announcement on the transparency platform of the EEX energy exchange is required by law and was made immediately after the decision was taken by the management. Commercial considerations were the main factor behind the notification of provisional closure.
On account of the sharp increase in the share of electricity from renewables in the grid, the number of full-load operating hours of the MKV hard coal fired unit had been declining for several years. This year, for the fourth time in a row after 2018, 2019 and 2020, the unit was temporarily shut down from the beginning of April to the end of September and did not participate in market operations during that period. The MKV, with a gross electrical capacity of 195Â MW, was commissioned in 1982.
On the application for closure will now be followed by a review by the transmission system operator Amprion to ascertain whether the power plant unit is to be classified as system-relevant in terms of ensuring a secure and stable energy supply. Irrespective of the outcome of this review process, which will take up to one year, STEAG is free to enter the MKV power plant unit in one of the five following decommissioning auctions for hard coal fired power plants provided for by the German Act on the Termination of Power Generation from Coal (KVBG). The KVBG regulates the phase-out of coal-fired power generation in Germany. But not by 2038 at the latest, as is the case with lignite, but in fact much earlier in the case of hard coal.
Should the BNetzA and Amprion grant the application, the job losses associated with the provisional closure could be arranged in a socially acceptable way: “Some of our employees at the site are expected to take retirement in the foreseeable future, and for others there are prospects at the neighboring STEAG sites in Bexbach and Weiher in the Saarland, as these two power plant units are considered to be system-relevant and therefore also require personnel,” says Andreas Reichel, Human Resources Director of STEAG.
However, should the BNetzA and Amprion conclude that the MKV is to be regarded as system-relevant, this would be tantamount to a ban on decommissioning. The power plant unit would be transferred to the grid’s reserve capacity until further notice and STEAG would have a legal claim to reimbursement of a large part of the plant’s operating costs. “The provision of power plant capacity that can be called up at any time is an important contribution to the success of the energy transition and comes at a price,” says Joachim Rumstadt, Chairman of the Board of Management of STEAG.
STEAG operates several power plant units at the Völklingen-Fenne site. In addition to the MKV, these are the Völklingen combined heat and power plant (HKV) with 236 MW and the natural gas and mine gas fired engine cogeneration plant (MHK) with 42 MW of electrical output. In addition, there is a boiler system with a thermal output of 170 MW for pure heat generation.
In this context, a provisional shutdown of the MKV will have no impact on the Saar district heating network supplied by the site. This is all the more so, as STEAG has already demonstrated foresight by investing in further alternative plants for heat generation, which will be ready for operation from the fourth quarter of this year, in advance of the 170,000 MWh of environmentally friendly waste heat from the Velsen waste-to-energy plant also becoming available annually from the 2022/2023 heating period onwards. This will significantly improve the already good carbon footprint of district heating supply at the Saar in the future.
“This makes two things very clear: Firstly, the district heating supply in the region is secured in the long term even beyond the final coal phase-out. And secondly, thanks to investments of this kind, the Saarland will continue to be an important pillar of STEAG’s operations,” says Thomas Billotet, Managing Director of Saarbrücken-based STEAG New Energies GmbH.
The site in the Fenne district of Völklingen also remains of central importance to STEAG. There, under the project name “Fenne HydroHub”, the energy company is planning to construct an electrolyzer for the production of green hydrogen, which in the future will make an important contribution to the decarbonization of the steel industry and the mobility sector in the Saarland.
To this end, STEAG recently applied for project funding as an IPCEI – “Important Project of Common European Interest” – together with network operator Creos Deutschland, plant manufacturer Siemens Energy, mobility service provider Saarbahn and steel producer SHS – Stahl-Holding-Saar. (STEAG/Si.)
At STEAG GmbH’s long-established power plant site in Herne/Germany, construction is currently in progress on a state-of-the-art combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant, which is to replace the hard coal fired unit previously operated there in the course of the coming year (Figure 1). The new Herne CCGT plant, which STEAG GmbH, Essen/Germany, is to operate together with its partner Siemens, ranks among the most flexible, efficient and consequently resource conserving power plants of its kind worldwide. STEAG has registered the coal fired unit, which went online in 1989, for final decommissioning. The aim is to convert the unit to one with a boiler fired by natural gas. It is to be used in future to back up the district heating supply at the heart of the Ruhr area.
When the new Herne CCGT plant goes into continuous commercial operation in 2022, the old coal fired combined heat and power unit at the same site will be history. “With the CCGT plant, which also generates electricity and heat at the same time in accordance with the principle of cogeneration, we are ensuring a secure supply and supporting the energy system in a much more environmentally friendly way,” says Ralf Schiele, who, as a member of the management board of STEAG, is responsible for Markets and Technology. And furthermore, “STEAG is building the energy future in Herne and in doing so making an important contribution to decarbonization and the success of the energy transition in the region, because the switch to natural gas will roughly halve CO2 emissions.”
STEAG is also concurrently planning the second step in sustainable CO2 savings at the Herne site. “We will also convert the plants that are to be used to back up the heat supply in the future to lower emission fuel,” says Schiele. To this end, STEAG is planning to convert the existing Herne 4 coal fired unit to a natural gas-fired boiler.
Performance of the necessary work within the current schedule for the construction and commissioning of the Herne CCGT plant is dependent on a permit from the transmission system operator Amprion for the final decommissioning of the former hard coal unit. “Since such a decision is preceded by extensive reviews of, among other things, the system relevance of the plant to be decommissioned, STEAG has today submitted a corresponding application to Amprion in order to be prospectively ready to take action next spring,” Schiele explains.
As soon as the transmission system operator has given its approval for final decommissioning, STEAG will be able to start implementing the plans after the 2021 heating period, i. e. in spring 2022. “With the Herne CCGT plant and the conversion of Herne 4 to natural gas, the heating supply to around 275,000 households in the heart of the Ruhr region, which is already climate-friendly today, will once again be noticeably lower in emissions,” says Michael Straus, managing director of STEAG Fernwärme GmbH.
In terms of resource efficiency and climate protection, it will also be possible to reduce CO2Â emissions at the Herne site even further in the future by switching partially to green hydrogen firing.
STEAG’s plans to convert the old coal fired unit in Herne are also good news for the Ruhr region as a business location. This is because the number of jobs that will be retained at the site in the long term even after the switch from hard coal to natural gas will be even greater. “Herne is and will remain a highly skilled energy hub where the energy transition for Germany is shaped. This is good news in terms of environmental protection in our city and in the region as a whole,” says Herne’s Mayor Frank Dudda.
At the same time, the projects in Herne are an expression and symbol of the consistently pursued process of transformation at STEAG as a whole: “For several years now, we have been successfully and with increasing speed aligning the company to the growth markets of the energy future,” says Joachim Rumstadt, Chairman of STEAG’s Board of Management, placing the environmentally friendly conversion works at the Herne site in a broader context. “No matter whether in the field of the hydrogen economy, power generation and supply from renewables, storage technology, heat supply, the planning and implementation of customized decarbonization and efficiency solutions for industrial customers, or in the construction and operation of distributed generation plants or large-scale power plants as in Herne, STEAG always brings to the table expertise in energy that has grown over more than eight decades,” says Rumstadt. This makes STEAG an active and successful contributor to the energy transition, especially in Germany.
“Because,” as Joachim Rumstadt sums up, “the projects in Herne in particular fulfill the requirements for a forward-looking energy supply almost ideally: they guarantee security of supply, are cost-effective, resource-efficient and therefore environmentally compatible.” (STEAG/Si.)
The energy company STEAG GmbH, -Essen/Germany, notified on 2nd February 2021 the Federal Network Agency of its plan to permanently shut down its two power plant units Weiher 3 and Bexbach in the Saarland (Figure 1). The statutory publication on the transparency platform took place promptly following the notification. Previously, both units had only been registered for temporary shutdown. The deciding factor for the application for permanent shutdown was the shortened operating life for hard coal fired generating units as provided for in the Coal-fired Power Generation Termination Act (KVBG).
The KVBG, which came into force in August 2020, regulates the phase-out of coal-fired power generation in Germany. But not by 2038 at the latest, as is the case with lignite, but in principle much earlier in the case of hard coal. “With the exception of the young Walsum 10 power plant unit in Duisburg, we have to expect that our other plants will be shut down without compensation from 2026 at the latest, if they are still on the market then,” explains Joachim Rumstadt, Chairman of the Management Board of STEAG GmbH.
The Weiher and Bexbach hard coal-fired power plants in the Saarland have been kept available as grid reserve plants since 2017. “At that time, we assumed that we would be able to offer generation from both plants on the market again at a later date and when conditions were more favorable. With the KVBG coming into force, economic considerations mean we have no choice but to now apply for permanent shutdown for both plants.”
Regardless of this, the Weiher 3 and Bexbach plants will, for the time being, continue to be kept available in the grid reserve and can be dispatched by the transmission system operator Amprion to stabilize the power grid if necessary and to ensure security of supply in the region. In the early days of the new year, this was the case on a number of occasions. Last year, the two power plants were dispatched a total of 21 times. Nevertheless, the number of operating hours was so low that Weiher and Bexbach would have practically no chance of winning a bid at a decommissioning tender.
Amprion will now check whether the power plants are still system-relevant. The transmission system operator can apply to the Federal Network Agency for an extension of the system relevance status beyond 2022. Only after the end of system relevance may both units be shut down permanently. A total of 230 skilled jobs would then be lost at both sites.
“The Saarland will continue to be of particular importance for STEAG,” Rumstadt comments, referring to the projects planned for the future. “At the Völklingen-Fenne site, e. g., we want to use the existing infrastructure and develop it into a hub for hydrogen production and sector coupling.” For Weiher and Bexbach, he says, there are concepts to develop both locations into centers for special grid-related assets based on natural gas. Large-scale battery systems for providing system services are already located there. In addition, the possibility of installing large-scale ground-mounted photovoltaic systems at both sites is currently being examined.
In the Saarland, STEAG and its partners operate a large regional district heating network, the Fernwärmeschiene Saar. Around 13,500 customers are currently supplied with environmentally friendly district heating. The largest customer is the Ford car factory in Saarlouis with its associated Industrial Supplier Park. STEAG will soon be starting another major project in the region: the Velsen Waste-to-Energy Plant will be upgraded to a combined heat and power plant and connected to the existing district heating network via a connecting pipeline. And with the 170,000 MWh of heat extracted every year, the carbon footprint of the Saar region’s district heating supply will improve yet again.
In Völklingen-Fenne, STEAG operates one of the world’s largest mine gas engine plants to generate electricity and heat. The plants are supplied from the company’s own 110 km long mine gas network. The electricity generated is fed into the public grid under the Renewable Energies Act (EEG) and the heat is supplied to the Saar district heating network. (STEAG/Si.)
Essen-based energy company STEAG GmbH sells its Romanian Crucea onshore wind farm (Figure 1) to the Romanian renewable energy producer Hidroelectrica. This has to be seen in context with STEAG’s strategic self-realignment which in reference to the company’s activities on the wind sector sees concentration on project development and providing operational services with the French wind energy market especially in focus. Actually STEAG is running wind farms in France as well as in Germany.
On 23rd December 2020, STEAG and Societatea de Producere a Energiei Electrice în Hidrocentrale Hidroelectrica S.A. (Hidroelectrica) signed an agreement concerning the sale of STEAG’s shares in Romanian subsidiaries Crucea Wind Farm S.A. (Crucea Wind Farm) and STEAG Energie Romania S.R.L. (STEAG Energie Romania) to Hidroelectrica, following a highly competitive process which involved both local and international bidders. The transaction will complete in accordance with conditions stipulated in the agreement.
Hidroelectrica is focused on diversifying its production by adding high-quality renewables capacities to its portfolio, as part of the company`s recently approved development strategy. The company restates its objective of remaining 100 % green throughout the portfolio diversification process.
Developed by STEAG and commissioned in 2014, Crucea Wind Farm is one of the most modern and best-maintained onshore wind farms in Romania with an installed capacity of 108Â MW.
By selling the asset at this very moment STEAG has met an opportune time since the transaction correlates with STEAG’s future wind strategy to develop, sell, and then run those renewable assets as service operator. Concerning wind energy most activities of STEAG will in future take place on the French market which is considered to offer opportunities for further growth. (STEAG/Si.)
