“Power plant in a coma”

Five people are employed around the clock in the control room of the first German lignite plant switched off to protect the climate, according to a feature by Steffen Höhne in Frankfurter Rundschau. They are there to keep the station fit for service but the head of the Buschhaus plant admits it is a challenge to motivate the team to manage a standstill.
In the coming years, seven more plants are to follow Buschhaus into the lignite emergency reserve with a total capacity of 2.7 gigawatts, equivalent to 13 percent of Germany’s lignite capacity. The stations are to remain operational for a period of four years so they can produce power within eleven days’ notice in case of emergency. But many experts doubt that will ever be the case.

Find the article in German here.

Find background material on the lignite emergency reserve in the CLEW factsheet Germany’s new power market design.