Government pushes German coal exit stocktake to 2027

Germany’s government will miss this week’s deadline to present a progress evaluation of the country’s coal phaseout and instead push the report publication to 2027, the economy ministry told Clean Energy Wire.

The government intends to wait for the results of this year’s rounds of tenders for new gas-fired power plants and incorporate them into the coal exit stocktake “to be able to carry out an analysis that is as realistic and robust as possible, particularly with regard to security of supply, especially for the period from 2031 onwards,” the ministry said.

Six years after enshrining the end of coal power in law, Germany's phase-out by 2038 at the latest remains on schedule – even if a new energy crisis, delays to replacement capacity, and questions about earlier closure commitments are testing the agreement's resilience. Researchers expect market forces, such as rising CO₂ prices, to push coal out of the electricity mix well before the agreed final closures of power plants in 2038.

However, Germany must guarantee electricity supply security, and has thus introduced auctions for state support to help build backup plants designed to secure electricity supply at times when intermittent wind and solar energy is insufficient to meet demand. These backup plants are likely to be almost exclusively gas-fired in the first two auction rounds this year, since the facilities must be able to supply electricity continuously over extended periods. Germany’s grid agency BNetzA has launched the first auction, with results expected by 3 November. The results of a second round are expected by 23 February 2027. 

A spokesperson for the economy ministry confirmed to Clean Energy Wire that this means the coal exit stocktake would be pushed to late spring or early summer 2027.

The evaluation is required by Germany’s coal exit law. The report due on 15 August must evaluate the coal exit impact on electricity supply security, heating supply, electricity prices, as well as gypsum supply (production relies on coal-fired power plants). It must also take stock of whether the legal shutdown timetable for coal power plants has been kept, and what this means for reaching climate targets.

Among other aspects, the report will also assess whether the final coal exit date can be pulled forward to 2035, and whether several lignite power plants in the western industry state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) will be decommissioned by 2030, or put into a reserve – thus deciding whether a 2022 agreement to end coal in NRW by 2030 can still be implemented. State governments in eastern Saxony and Brandenburg, who share the vast Lusatia mining region between them, have been reluctant to commit to a more ambitious exit schedule, arguing that structural economic challenges are hitting them harder than the more industrially diversified NRW.  

The previous government had failed to present the first major evaluation, which was due in 2022. Once the stocktake is published, experts from both the Energy Transition Monitoring Commission and the Council of Experts on Climate Change will assess the stocktake and provide recommendations.