
Breadcrumbs
Coal is not making a comeback: Europe plans limited increase
Analysis by Ember reveals that plans in Europe to place a small number of coal plants on temporary standby would have limited impact on emissions and climate commitments.
About
This briefing analyses the worst case scenario impacts of recent announcements by Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and France regarding emergency gas saving measures that may increase coal-fired power generation over the coming six to eighteen months.
Executive summary
Limited increase in coal power in Europe
Senior analyst
Europe finds itself in this urgent situation due to past energy policy mistakes. Despite numerous warning signs, EU member states ignored the risks of over-reliance on imported gas and neglected the need to rapidly replace this with domestic renewables. Consequently, it now faces the difficult, emergency decision of temporarily relying on coal while substantially ramping up its clean energy deployment. Mistakes Asia cannot afford to repeat.

Analysis
Limited increase in coal power in Europe
Dave Jones Ember’s Global Programme Lead
The COP26 announcement of ‘coal power phasedown’ still stands strong, even though there may be a short term uptick in Europe. What has changed is that Europe is now focused on a coal AND gas power phasedown.
Conclusion
Lessons learnt
The EU finds itself in this incredibly difficult situation as a result of historic energy policy mistakes. Instead of driving a rapid increase in renewables deployment years ago, gas was hailed as the ideal bridging fuel as Europe transitioned (slowly) from fossil fuels to clean energy. This over-reliance on imported energy supplies exposed the region to huge economic and geo-political risks.
The impact of this crisis is being felt across the world and the consequences of Europe’s past mistakes should be a valuable lesson to other regions, especially Asia. Cripplingly high fossil fuel prices are here to stay. Domestic renewables can deliver energy security and economic resilience, whilst reliance on fossil fuels creates risks of instability and energy poverty.
Supporting Material
Methodology
CO2 emissions
For the additional net CO2 emissions calculations it has been assumed that any additional coal-fired power generation will be replacing an equal amount of gas-fired power generation.
Carbon intensities used are:
Hard coal = 0.83 tCO2eq/MWh
Lignite = 1.1 tCO2eq/MWh
Fossil gas = 0.37 tCO2eq/MWh
Other fossil = 0.7 tCO2eq/MWh
2021 EU-27 CO2 emissions = 2,400 million tonnes (source: IEA Global Energy Review 2021
2021 EU-27 power sector CO2 emissions = 720 million tonnes (source: Ember analysis of EU-ETS data)
Coal usage
A factor of 1 tonne of hard coal = 2.65 MWh of electricity has been used to calculate the additional hard coal consumption.
Capacity factors
65% has been chosen as the worst-case scenario capacity factor as this is a high annual capacity factor for European hard coal and lignite plants, especially those that are old and/or coming out of retirement. To put it in context, in 2021 the average capacity factors for EU plants were 36% and 57% for hard coal and lignite respectively. It is assumed that plants in the Netherlands are already running at 35% of their coal-fired capacity so the increase in coal generation will only be 30%
2.4 GW of the listed German hard coal plants are currently operating so not all their generation and associated CO2 emissions will be additional to current levels. Consequently, their inclusion in the analysis may actually over-estimate the additional impact of those plants.
Acknowledgements
RWE’s Neurath coal-fired power station, photographed by Naturfoto-Online / Alamy Stock Photo