Global power giant RWE defended its green credentials after facing a storm of criticism for overseeing the replacement of wind capacity with an expanded coal mine in its home German market.
The German utility was accused of flying in the face of the energy transition after the first turbine was last week removed from the eight-machine, 10.4MW Keyenberg Windfarm in North Rhine-Westphalia to make way for extended operations at the Garzweiler lignite mine.
RWE told Recharge that the other seven turbines will follow over the next three years under the terms of the original permit that allowed Keyenberg to enter service in 2001, which made provision for expansion of the mine after several decades had elapsed, and “not as a result of a recent change of German energy policy”, which has backed a temporary revival of some coal-fired generation to ease supply issues following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
RWE in an agreement with the German government earlier in October said it will leave two lignite-fired power plants temporarily on the grid that were scheduled for shutdown, but at the same time brought forward its coal exit date by eight years to 2030.
Campaigners claimed the Keyenberg move symbolised a “rollback in German climate protection”, while local state officials were quoted by The Guardian asking RWE to rethink the move.
But an RWE spokesman claimed to Recharge that the utility giant can hold its head up when it comes to adding wind capacity in coal regions.
“RWE and its partner City of Bedburg inaugurated a windfarm of 28.5MW just across Garzweiler Mine and in eyeshot of Keyenberg Windfarm on formerly mined land. That was last Wednesday. It adds to a neighbouring RWE/Bedburg windfarm with 21 turbines.
“More RWE wind farms and solar farms are being built or planned in that very area at present. By 2030, RWE will have added at least 500MW of renewables capacity in the Rhenish lignite mining district only. In this way, the current and the future projects will more than compensate [for] the dismantled capacity of Keyenberg Windfarm.”
The Keyenberg turbines are operated by several different renewable energy specialists including Energiekontor, which told Recharge it had not yet heard from RWE over the issue but confirmed that the terms of the original permit would involve the land no longer being available for wind generation post-2024.
While sympathetic to the idea of examining options for repowering if that position changed, a spokesman said the German onshore wind sector was currently facing far bigger challenges in the form of its proposed price cap and the ongoing difficulty in obtaining permits for “many gigwatts” of new projects stuck in the planning system.
