Uniper Shuts Down German, British Coal Power Plants

Uniper SE has said it is decommissioning the United Kingdom’s last remaining coal-fired generation facility, as well as exiting two more coal power plants at home in Germany.

The Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottingham, England, ended nearly six decades of service last week and will be decommissioned in about two years. In Germany, Uniper has now completed the decommissioning of Heyden 4 in Petershagen after nearly four decades of generation and launched a sale process for Datteln 4 in the namesake town.

The UK had set October 1, 2024, as the end date for coal generation while Germany has set a goal to complete its coal phaseout by 2038.

Uniper is “embracing the future of cleaner and flexible energy”, chief executive Michael Lewis said in a statement. “In this context, Uniper aims to invest in technologies like CCS [carbon capture and storage], Renewables and hydrogen. The goal is to decarbonize our remaining power assets and to deliver low carbon fuel as well as green and reliable energy to our customers”.

Staring operation 1967, Ratcliffe expanded to have a total capacity of two gigawatts, enough to power over two million homes, about the whole of the East Midlands, according to Uniper. The station occupies a site of about 270 hectares.

“Our investments in technical advancements and modifications over the years enabled Ratcliffe to seamlessly switch from delivering baseload power to more flexible power generation, responding to requests to generate power for the national grid, as and when needed”, Uniper said. “This and work to reduce the station’s environmental emissions have enabled it to be the last coal plant standing in the UK. 

“Ratcliffe power station is the only coal-fired plant in the UK to be fitted with a Selective Catalytic Reduction emission control facility, capable of reducing NOx (nitrogen oxides) emissions by 70-95 percent. It is also equipped with a Flue-Gas Desulphurisation plant to remove sulfur dioxide (SO2) from the exhaust flue gases before they enter the atmosphere”.

Uniper expects Ratcliffe’s decommissioning process to last around two years, before it could be demolished.

“For me, Ratcliffe has always been more than just a power station—it has been a pillar of the UK's energy security for decades”, Lewis said. “Built during a time when coal was the backbone of industrial progress, Ratcliffe… played a crucial role in boosting economic growth and supporting the livelihoods of thousands of people.

“This will be the first time since 1882 that coal has not powered Great Britain”.

Employees at the site who will lose their jobs will be redeployed across Uniper and “several measures have been put in place to support colleagues who are leaving the business”, the Duesseldorf-based company said.

In Germany Uniper completed a 2020 decision to shut down the 875-megawatt Heyden 4, which supplied Northern and Western Germany from 1987.

“Uniper is developing a master plan for the site in close consultation with the town of Petershagen to create future jobs”, Uniper said in a separate press release.

Meanwhile Uniper launched a process to divest Datteln 4, which like Heyden 4 is in North Rine-Westphalia state. Uniper said the sale is part of the bailout agreement between Uniper and the German government in December 2022, under which the state took over about 99 percent of the company’s shareholding and agreed to a capital injection of EUR 25 billion ($27.4 billion). 

“The transaction perimeter will consist of the coal-fired power plant with a capacity of 1,052 megawatts (including coal-handling facilities, heat generating units as well as all infrastructure and plots on the hereditary building right property on which the coal-fired power plant is located), personnel that will transfer with the power plant, and all contracts related to the power plant that will exist at the time of the sale”, Uniper said in another media release.

“In addition, interested parties will have the opportunity to submit offers for land and other infrastructure located on the Datteln site”.

To contact the author, email jov.onsat@rigzone.com