Uniper's Staudinger 5 power plant receives award from the German Federal Network Agency and ends power marketing as early as May 2023
- Uniper COO David Bryson: "Uniper is ahead of its own announcements on coal phase-out."
- Uniper has been successful in all of the auctions held by the German Federal Network Agency to date
- This means that around 2,500 megawatts (MW) of hard coal capacity can be withdrawn from the market ahead of schedule
Uniper's Staudinger 5 hard-coal-fired power plant ( 510 MW net) will 2023 cease commercial electricity production and be decommissioned by 21 May at the latest. This is the timetable set out in the Act to Reduce and End Coal-fired Power Generation of 13 August 2020 for those power plants that have been awarded a contract by the German Federal Network Agency in the fourth tender of 1 October 2021. The result of the auction was announced by the Federal Network Agency today. According to this, Staudinger 5 was one of three power plants to be awarded a contract - for 510 MW. A total of 533 MW were awarded in the auction.
This means that Uniper has now been successful in each of the Federal Network Agency's four auctions to date: The positive decisions for Heyden 4 power station (1st auction: 875 MW), Wilhelmshaven 1 (second auction: 757 MW), Scholven C (3rd auction: 345 MW) and now Staudinger 5 alone will enable Uniper to remove a total of 2.487 MW (net) of hard-coal capacity from the market ahead of schedule. In the case of Staudinger 5, the transmission system operator and the Federal Network Agency will also examine the power plant's potential system relevance.
The Staudinger power plant in Großkrotzenburg is one of Uniper's most powerful power plant sites and the largest conventional power plant in the state of Hessen. Currently, only Uniper's hard-coal-fired unit 5 is used on the electricity market. The natural gas-fired Block 4 (622 MW) is held in reserve by the grid operator TenneT for grid stabilisation and as reserve capacity. In addition, the city of Hanau and the local municipality are supplied with district heating by the power plant.
David Bryson, Uniper's COO: "We're not only on track to phase out coal-fired generation, we're well ahead of our own announcements. This shows that we are serious about a rapid phase-out. Staudinger power station is located at one of the most important hubs of the German power grid and is an important element for us in the "Making Net Zero Possible" project. Our remaining unit 4 is gas-fired and continues to fulfil a central function for security of supply in Germany.
However, commercial coal-fired power generation will come to an end at this site next May 22, 2023. Together with our partners, Stadtwerke Hanau and Gemeindewerke Großkrotzenburg, we will secure our contractual obligations to supply district heating by other means. Our focus is above all on preserving as many jobs as possible through a consistent realignment of the site."
In January 2020, Uniper presented a decommissioning plan for its hard-coal-fired power plants in Germany, which is intended to achieve CO2 savings of up to approximately 18 million metric tons of CO2 per year. The plan calls for the decommissioning of hard-coal-fired power stations with a total capacity of about 2,900 MW by the end of 2025 at the latest.
The German Federal Network Agency issues invitations to tender on fixed dates for the decommissioning of hard coal-fired assets by 2026. Participants in the auction offer to decommission a power plant on the date defined in the tender in return for payment of the bid value submitted by them. In the first auction, which started on September 1, 2020, a capacity of four gigawatts (GW) was tendered; in the second auction on January 4, 2021, 1.5 GW were tendered; in the third, around 2.5 GW and in the fourth, 433 MW.
About Uniper
Uniper is a leading international energy company, has around 12,000 employees, and operates in more than 40 countries. The company plans for its power generation business in Europe to be carbon-neutral by 2035. Uniper’s roughly 35 GW of installed generation capacity make it one of the world‘s largest electricity producers. The company's core activities include power generation in Europe and Russia as well as global energy trading and a broad gas portfolio, which makes Uniper one of Europe’s leading gas companies. In 2019, Uniper had a gas turnover of 220 bcm. In addition, Uniper is a reliable partner for communities, municipal utilities, and industrial enterprises for planning and implementing innovative, lower-carbon solutions on their decarbonization journey. Uniper is a hydrogen pioneer, is active worldwide along the entire hydrogen value chain, and is conducting projects to make hydrogen a mainstay of the energy supply.
The company is based in Düsseldorf and is currently Germany’s third-largest publicly listed energy supply company. Together with its main shareholder Fortum, Uniper is also Europe’s third-largest producer of zero-carbon energy.
This press release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Uniper SE Management and other information currently available to Uniper. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. Uniper SE does not intend, and does not assume any liability whatsoever, to update these forward-looking statements or to modify them to conform with future events or developments.
