Frankfurt an der Oder says goodbye to coal

The electric utility of Frankfurt an der Oder, a city located on the German-Polish border and not to be confused with Germany's banking capital Frankfurt am Main, has joined its Cottbus counterpart and decided to replace its coal-fired cogeneration plant with one powered by natural gas, according to an article in Der Tagesspiegel. The new plant will cost approximately 50 million euros and is expected to be finished by 2022, the article says. The utility’s decision to exit from coal is symbolically important, Annalena Baerbock, chairwoman of the Green Party, said. “While the federal government and the state government of Brandenburg are doing everything to ensure that climate-damaging coal continues to pollute the air for as long as possible, irreversibly destroying landscapes and forcing people to relocate, the municipal utilities are sending a signal” that brown coal is not sustainable, she said.

Read the article in German here.

See CLEW’s Coal exit commission watch and the factsheet Germany’s coal exit commission for background on the fossil fuel’s future in Germany.