Staudinger power station

From Global Energy Monitor

Staudinger power station is an operating power station of at least 1175-megawatts (MW) in Grosskrotzenburg, Main-Kinzig, Hessen, Germany with multiple units, some of which are not currently operating. It is also known as Großkrotzenburg power station.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Plant name Location Coordinates (WGS 84)
Staudinger power station Grosskrotzenburg, Main-Kinzig, Hessen, Germany 50.088361, 8.952166 (exact)

The map below shows the exact location of the power station.

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Unit-level coordinates (WGS 84):

  • Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3, Unit 5: 50.088361, 8.952166
  • Unit 6: 50.088056, 8.952222
  • Unit 4: 50.0886, 8.9534

Project Details

Table 2: Unit-level details

Unit name Status Fuel(s) Capacity (MW) Technology CHP Start year Retired year
Unit 1 retired coal - bituminous 271 subcritical 1965 2013
Unit 2 retired coal - bituminous 271 subcritical 1965 2012
Unit 3 retired coal - bituminous 318 subcritical 1970 2012
Unit 4 operating[1] gas[1][2] 622[1][3][2] steam turbine[1] no[2] 1977[4]
Unit 5 operating coal - bituminous 553 supercritical 1992 2023 (planned)
Unit 6 cancelled coal - bituminous 1100 ultra-supercritical 2012

CHP is an abbreviation for Combined Heat and Power. It is a technology that produces electricity and thermal energy at high efficiencies. Coal units track this information in the Captive Use section when known.

Table 3: Unit-level ownership and operator details

Unit name Owner Parent
Unit 1 E.ON Kraftwerke GmbH [100.0%]
Unit 2 E.ON Kraftwerke GmbH [100.0%]
Unit 3 E.ON Kraftwerke GmbH [100.0%]
Unit 4 Uniper Kraftwerke GmbH[4] Fortum Oyj [76.0%]; other [24.0%]
Unit 5 E.ON Kraftwerke GmbH [100.0%]
Unit 6 E.ON Kraftwerke GmbH [100.0%]

Project-level coal details

  • Coal source(s): imported

Background

Staudinger is an existing power station at Grosskrotzenburg near Hanau. It originally comprised five units, four coal and one gas, with a total capacity of approximately 2,000 MW. The units were commissioned between 1965 and 1992. The three oldest (blocks 1-3) were decommissioned. The blocks still in operation were block 5, which is coal-fired, and block 4, which is gas-fired. Staudinger 1 was decommissioned in April 2013 after 48 years of operation. Blocks 2 and 3 were decommissioned at the end of 2012. It was agreed that gas-fired block 4 was to be maintained ready for operation as a standby plant until March 2016. Block 5, a 553 MW supercritical unit commissioned in 1992, generates both electric power and district heat.[5]

It was announced in November 2012 that plant owner E.ON shelved plans to add an additional 1,100 MW unit at the same location, but did not cancel the project altogether.[6]

As of October 29, 2021, Block 5 was scheduled for shut down by the end of 2025.[7] Block 4 was operating as reserve capacity, as of October 2021, and had most recently operated in June of 2021.[8]

Under a series of tenders, operators in Germany were asked to declare at which price they would be prepared to shut their coal plants in return for funds to offset some of their losses. In December 2021, Block 5 was identified in an auction to go offline by May 22, 2023.[9][10]

In May 2022, the power station was planned to be utilized as a reserve plant due to energy security concerns in light of the war in Ukraine. The plant could be utilized on a limited basis until 2024.[11][12]

Power Station Proposal

Power in Europe reported that in February 2008 the "state elections give no clear outcome, and so no clear guide on planning yet." It also noted that the company's plans to have construction start in "late 2008" "but had been "delayed at least a year, as E.ON seeks local planning consents amid environmental opposition. Planned start-up slips to 2013."[13] In June 2008 Power in Europe noted that "despite local and state opposition" E.ON "lodged an application for a permit under the federal protection against emissions law on May 23, after making an application under local planning procedures in April. Ironically, on May 21 the state of Hesse’s parliamentary economic and transport committee voted against the planned coal plant on environmental grounds." E.ON proposes that following the commissioning of the new station it would decommission the existing three units: 1 and 2 both have 250 megawatts installed capacity while unite 3 is 300 megawatts. E.ON is defending the proposal on the grounds that the new plant would be 20% more efficient than the existing units and therefore it would 'save' 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.[14]

In February 2009, E.ON announced that they would build a 1 megawatt pilot Carbon Capture and Storage plant at the site. Reuters reported that a spokeswoman for Siemens said that the pilot plant would cost less than 10 million euros and would be run on "flue gas from Staudinger's unit 5 between mid-2009 and the end of 2010."[15]

Permit for Staudinger plant

On December 29, 2010, E.ON AG received approval from a governing council of the state of Hesse to build a sixth coal-fired power generation block at the Staudinger site with a capacity of 1.1 gigawatts. The new EUR1.2 billion plant would replace three old generation units built in the 1960s and 1970s. In a written statement, however, the company said it won't make a final decision to build the facility until it has weighed up the legal issues surrounding likely lawsuits that opponents of the project have previously announced. In a separate statement, the Darmstadt-based governing council said the first approval for the Staudinger plant allows E.ON to build facilities such as the power plant's boiler and engine houses or its cooling tower. Approval for the actual operation of the power plant hasn't yet been issued, the governing council said. It added, however, that the first partial approval includes "fundamental regulations" that E.ON has to abide to when eventually operating the plant.[16]

E.ON has also faced legal challenges at a similar power plant project in western Germany, the Datteln Power Station.[16]

E.ON had previously said it sticks to its plan to build the new Staudinger power plant despite partner Stadtwerke Hannover's decision earlier this year to exit the project. Stadtwerke Hannover, the local utility of the northern German city of Hanover, in November 2010 said it will sell its last remaining 12.6% in the Staudinger project to E.ON due to the German government's new energy policies that affect the profitability of coal-fired power plants - the federal government in September 2010 presented an energy policy to 2050, which includes extending the legal operating lives of the country's 17 nuclear power plants.[16]

Articles and Resources

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 https://web.archive.org/web/20240219043348/https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Sachgebiete/ElektrizitaetundGas/Unternehmen_Institutionen/Versorgungssicherheit/Erzeugungskapazitaeten/Kraftwerksliste/kraftwerksliste-node.html. Archived from the original on 19 February 2024. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 https://web.archive.org/web/20220930062252/https://www.uniper.energy/de/deutschland/kraftwerke-deutschland/staudinger. Archived from the original on 30 September 2022. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. https://web.archive.org/web/20220927085225/https://transparency.entsoe.eu/content/static_content/Static%20content/knowledge%20base/SFTP-Transparency_Docs.html. Archived from the original on 27 September 2022. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. 4.0 4.1 (PDF) https://web.archive.org/web/20221017044159/https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/20/023/2002356.pdf. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 October 2022. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. "Staudinger power plant," E.ON, accessed April 2016
  6. "E.ON reaffirms earnings forecast for 2012, will review medium-term guidance" E.ON, November 13, 2012
  7. "Kraftwerk Staudinger". Uniper Energy. Retrieved October 29, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ENTSO-E, Unit 11WD2STAU0001800 European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity, data from October 2021
  9. "German auction agrees terms to close 533 MW of coal power," Reuters, December 15, 2021
  10. "Aus­schrei­bung nach dem KVBG / Ge­bots­ter­min 1. Ok­to­ber 2021," Bundesnetzagentur, 2021
  11. "TABLE-German power plants to jump in if Russian gas dries up," Reuters, May 24, 2022
  12. "Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur Bereithaltung von Ersatzkraftwerken zur Reduzierung des Gasverbrauchs im Stromsektor im Fall einer drohenden Gasmangellage durch Änderungen des Energiewirtschaftsgesetzes und weiterer energiewirtschaftlicher Vorschriften," Deutscher Bundestag, June 21, 2022
  13. "PiE’s new power plant project tracker – April 2008", Power in Europe, Issue 523, April 7, 2008, page 22.
  14. "E.ON advances Staudinger", Power in Europe, Issue 527, June 2, 2008. (Not Available online).
  15. Vera Eckert, "E.ON, Siemens To Build Pilot Carbon Capture Plant", Reuters, February 20, 2009.
  16. 16.0 16.1 16.2 Jan Hromadko, "UPDATE: E.ON Gets OK To Build Staudinger Coal-Fired Power Plant" Wall Street Journal, Dec. 29, 2010.

Additional data

To access additional data, including interactive maps of the power stations, downloadable datases, and summary data, please visit the Global Coal Plant Tracker and the Global Oil and Gas Plant Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.