Summary: European multi -country steering coal power response to energy shortage

Xinhua News Agency, Hague, June 28. Summary: European multi -country steering coal power to respond to energy shortage

Xinhua News Agency reporter

In recent years, many European countries have vigorously developed new energy, and the proportion of coal power in energy structure has continued to narrow. However, with the significant decrease in Russia's natural gas supply, European countries such as Germany, Austria, Greece, and the Netherlands have recently announced that they have re -opened coal power plants or take measures to support coal power.

Analysts believe that it is helpless to turn coal power in European countries. Russia is the EU's largest natural gas and crude oil supplier. After the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, the EU has continuously upgraded sanctions against Russia and exacerbated the shortage of energy in European countries.

The German Federal Economic and Climate Protection Department issued a statement on the 19th that in order to deal with Russia's natural gas supply significantly, Germany will take a series of emergency response measures, including restricting the use of natural gas power generation, and instead of using coal power.

"This is painful, but this is a necessary measure to reduce natural gas consumption." He said that in order to avoid the difficulty of using natural gas in order to avoid winter heating in winter, he said. Let the reserve coal power station be put into production.

Analysts believe that the German government's move is contrary to its plan to gradually eliminate coal and electricity. According to the joint ruling agreement of the current federal government, Germany will put the elimination of the elimination of coal power from 2038 to 2030 in the "ideal circumstances." The Green Party where Habeck claims to stop mining coal and requires closing all existing coal power plants.

Coincidentally, the Austrian government also announced on the 19th of this month that a coal power plant in the southern city of Merah to respond to energy shortage. Earlier, the Austrian government proposed to fully achieve clean energy energy supply by 2030. The Meirah Coal Power Plant was shut down in the spring of 2020 and was the last coal power plant in the country.

The Greek government has also announced a few days ago that in order to ensure stable energy supply, the country will increase 50%of coal production capacity by 2024. Last year, the proportion of coal and electricity in Greek energy structures has been sharply reduced from 53%in 2011 to about 10%. With the continuous fermentation of the energy crisis and the price of natural gas, the Greek government has decided to suspend more coal power plants and postpone the time to eliminate coal power from 2025 to 2028.

In the Netherlands, the amount of coal power has been declining in recent years. At present, only three coal power plants have been existed in the country. In 2021, the Dutch government requested that the actual power generation of these three coal power plants must not exceed 35%of its power generation capacity. However, the Dutch government recently announced that in order to alleviate the shortage of natural gas and avoid difficulty in winter heating, the three coal power plants have been allowed to run immediately.

Poland's coal power accounts for about 70%, the highest among EU countries. At the same time, one -third of the Polish family coal is used for heating. Poland banned the import of Russian coal in April, and coal shortage and prices soared. Recently, the Polish government announced the launch of coal subsidy policies for ordinary families and imported coal from Colombia, Australia and South Africa to make up for the gap between 8 million tons of coal caused by prohibiting imports of Russian coal.

The European Commission Climate Action and Energy Affairs spokesman Tim Mcfi recently acknowledged that due to new changes in the European energy pattern, EU member states' energy structure and related plans will be adjusted, including restarting some coal production capacity.

Analysts believe that turning to coal power will disrupt the new energy development plan of European countries and will inevitably have a adverse effect on achieving carbon neutrality and targets by the European Union by 2050. (Reporter: Wang Xiangjiang; Participated in reporters: Zhu Sheng, Chen Chen, Yu Shuai Shuai, Liu Xinyu)

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