POWER May 2012 - 46

FOSSIL FUELS
Europe: More Coal, Then Less
Europe's continuing drive toward sustainable energy does not rule out a
new generation of coal power plants to replace those scheduled to
close by 2015.
By Charles Butcher
I
n Europe right now, coal-fired power generation
poses a paradox.
The years up to 2020 are forecast to see
many new coal power plants being built in
Europe, even as coal's share of the generating
mix continues to shrink and its perception as
a dirty fuel becomes more firmly fixed in the
minds of the public. Anti-coal protests are
loudest in Germany, where the need for new
coal capacity is arguably the greatest.
And though these new plants will boast
high thermal efficiencies, they will not include
carbon capture and storage (CCS).
This seems odd in view of the European
Union's (EU's) commitment to rapid and
deep cuts in carbon emissions, but not
even Europe's political determination and
high energy prices seem able to push CCS
to full-scale projects. In several other EU
countries, the push is toward multipurpose
plants that can supply electricity and district
heat while burning combinations of
fuels (Figure 1).
In short, Europe's citizens do not like coal,
but for the moment they cannot do without it.
Does that sound familiar?
Coal Capacity Closing
Europe needs new coal-fired capacity because
many aging coal and nuclear plants will be
closing in short order. Economics, poor planning,
and air pollution all play a part in the
shutdowns. In Germany, the political winds
changed direction a year ago, forcing eight of
the country's 17 reactors into immediate retirement
and scheduling the remainder for closure
by 2022, regardless of age or condition.
For more than 20 years the European
Commission's Large Combustion Plant Directive
(LCPD) has required furnaces and
boilers above 50 MWt (the thermal input
expressed in equivalent megawatts) to limit
their emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides.
Equipment for flue gas desulfurization and
NOx
course on new coal-fired power plants and
has been retrofitted to many existing ones.
The operators of some old coal plants,
however, decided that adding SOx
and NOx
control was not economically justified. In
these cases the LCPD allows plants to run for
46
1. Multifuel cogen plant. The Avedøre power plant south of Copenhagen, Denmark, is
operated by the state-owned company DONG Energy. It has a generating capacity of 810 MWe
plus 915 MWt for district heating, which is widely used in Denmark. The coal-fired Avedøre Unit
1 was built in 1990 and generates only power. Unit 2, which dates from 2001, can use a wide
variety of fuels-gas, oil, straw, and wood pellets-for power and district heating. Unit 2 has an
electrical efficiency of 49% and an overall efficiency of 94%. Courtesy: DONG Energy A/S and
Jasper Carlberg
an additional 20,000 hours or until the end of
2015, whichever comes soonest.
In 2009, Reuters reported that in terms of
capacity, Britain topped the LCPD opt-out
league. Poland opted out 37 plants, representing
32% of that country's total generating
capacity. Romania opted out 22% of its
capacity and Spain 10%. Even nuclear-dominated
France will lose 5% of its capacity by
the 2015 deadline. In total, 17 of the EU's 27
member states opted out a total of 205 facilities,
though not all are power plants.
control has been installed as a matter of
New Coal Rush Forecast
A new study by German energy consultancy
ecoprog GmbH forecasts that coal's
share of electricity generation across Europe
will decrease slightly over the next
decade. But, says ecoprog, loss of existing
nuclear and coal capacity, falling subsidies
for renewables, and volatile gas prices will
www.powermag.com
trigger a large amount of new coal capacity
in the next few years.
In late 2011, according to ecoprog, Europe
had about 330 coal-fired power plants with a
combined capacity of 200 GW from almost
950 units. Between 2012 and 2020, the firm
says, approximately 80 new coal units will be
built, with a capacity of about 50 GW (Figure
2). From 2003 to 2011, by comparison, only
40 units totaling 10 GW were built.
An important driver for this new capacity
is the need to replace old equipment,
ecoprog says. The average age of Europe's
coal power plants is 34 years, and by 2020
around 55 GW to 60 GW of coal capacity
will have reached the end of its operating
life. The LCPD alone will account for the
loss of 35 GW by 2016. The loss of nuclear
power plants in Germany and Switzerland,
oil-fired plants in Italy, and gas plants in the
UK will further add to the pressure.
POWER | May 2012
http://www.powermag.com

POWER May 2012

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