Johannes Lambertz, CEO of RWE Power, has said that security of supply calls for a diverse energy portfolio, although coal would be indispensable to such a portfolio; and that the EU has seriously curtailed its prospects.
Despite the urgent need for power plant renewal, RWE expects that several such projects will now have to be set aside and the modernization of existing plants delayed. The German energy company has said that the climate package will raise the risk of a power shortfall as well as increasing dependence on gas imports, since the incentive to build gas-fired plants will be all the greater.
RWE said that, if faced with a lack of incentives to build modern coal-fired power plants, energy companies will have no choice but to keep older plants with much higher carbon emissions on the grid, benefiting neither the economy nor the environment.
RWE said that at least E1 billion of this total has been earmarked for the first industrial-scale climate-friendly power plant to work with CCS technology. Located near Cologne, Germany, this plant is expected to come on stream in 2014.
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