No coal-fired power ban necessary for 2028 either

The Federal Network Agency will not impose a coal-fired power ban under the Act on the Reduction and Termination of Coal-Fired Power Generation (KVBG) this year either. As it announced on September 1, so many coal-fired power plants have already voluntarily or “market-driven” exited the market by this date that the legally required target level of only 8,677 megawatts of hard coal power plant capacity for the target year 2028 has already been undershot by 854 megawatts.

A year earlier, on the same date, it was already able to determine that the legally required target level of only 8,709 megawatts of hard coal-fired power plant capacity for the target year 2027 had already been exceeded by 329 megawatts. For the first time, therefore, it did not need to impose a ban on coal-fired power generation, as had previously been the case.

So far, only three hard coal-fired power plants have been forcibly shut down

By 2023, the Federal Network Agency had put out a total of 10,900 megawatts in seven tenders to reduce hard coal-fired power generation in accordance with §§ 10 to 26 of the Coal-Fired Power Generation Termination Act (KVBG). In the process, 41 plants with around 10,700 megawatts were successfully awarded. However, for three additional plants with a total net rated output of 1,400 megawatts, it had to impose an additional ban on coal-fired power generation in order to meet the target levels specified in § 4 of the KVBG.

The first of these three bans was imposed on the Scholven cogeneration plant in May 2022 and took effect in 2024 (220513). In October 2025, the West cogeneration plant in Wolfsburg was then prohibited from continuing to burn coal from 2025 onwards. In September 2024, a corresponding ban followed for the Heilbronn hard coal-fired power plant from 2026.

Links (internal)

• First coal-fired unit forcibly shut down (220513)
• 38 percent of coal capacity shut down through tenders to date (211207)
• First age ranking for the decommissioning of coal-fired power plants published (210711)
• 317 million euros in decommissioning premiums for loss-making hard coal-fired power plants (201204)
• EU Commission approves subsidies for ending hard coal-fired power generation (201106)
• First tender for the decommissioning of coal-fired power plants on September 1 (200805)
• German Bundestag passes coal phase-out and “Structural Strengthening Act” (200701)

• List of links to coal-fired power plants