Neurath Power Station is a

lignite Lignite (derived from Latin ''lignum'' meaning 'wood'), often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35% and is considered the lowest ...

-fired

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...

near Neurath in

Grevenbroich Grevenbroich () is a town in the Rhein-Kreis Neuss, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated on the river Erft, approximately 15 km southwest of Neuss and 15 km southeast of Mönchengladbach. Cologne and Düsseldorf are in a ...

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

, Germany. It is located to the south of Grevenbroich, and it borders the municipalities of

Rommerskirchen Rommerskirchen () is the southernmost municipality in the Rhein-Kreis Neuss, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Notable places Rommerskirchen possesses rich historical inheritances, including numerous remains of the Roman Villae Rusticae, and t ...

and

Bedburg Bedburg () is a town in the Rhein-Erft-Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia of Germany with 25,000 residents. Since 2014, Sascha Solbach is the mayor of Bedburg. The town is documented as existing as early as 893. Climate Notable people Sons an ...

. The power station consists of seven units, of which two are currently operating, and it is owned by

RWE RWE AG is a German multinational energy company headquartered in Essen. It generates and trades electricity in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and the United States. In July 2020, RWE completed a far-reaching asset swap deal with E.ON first ...

. It was named the second biggest single emitter of

carbon dioxide emissions Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities intensify the greenhouse effect. This contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide (), from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas, is the main cause of climate change. The ...

in the European Union in 2019 by the EU's Transport and Environment Group, as well as the 102nd biggest polluting asset globally by

Climate TRACE Climate TRACE (Tracking Real-Time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions) is an independent group which monitors and publishes greenhouse gas emissions. It launched in 2021 before COP26, and improves monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of both ...

Description

The Neurath Power Station serves mainly as a base load power station. It consists of seven units (3 x 300 MW, 2 x 600 MW, and 2 x 1,100 MW nominally). The five older units were built between 1972 and 1976, and together had a gross electrical generation capacity of 2,200 MW. These units were decommissioned on 31 March 2024. On 15 August 2012 two new 1,060 MW lignite-fired units – F and G, also known as ''BoA 2 and 3'' – were added for a total generation capacity of 4.4GW, around 1/4 more than the

Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant The Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant (, ) is one of Finland's two nuclear power plants, the other being the two-unit Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant. The plant is owned and operated by Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), and is located on Olkiluoto Island, on th ...

. BoA stands for ''Braunkohlekraftwerk mit optimierter Anlagentechnik'' (Lignite power station with optimized system technology). The new units have an efficiency of 43% and the capability to adjust quickly to changes in energy demand. Both of the new units are 170 m (558 ft) tall which makes them amongst the tallest industrial buildings in the world, possibly second only to the BoA block at the nearby

Niederaussem Power Station Niederaussem Power Station is a lignite-fired power station in the Bergheim, North Rhine-Westphalia, Bergheim Niederaussem/Rhein-Erft-Kreis, Rhein Erft circle, owned by RWE. It consisted of nine units, which were built between 1963 and 2003. It ...

. Its engineering was carried out by

Alstom Alstom SA () is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signaling, and locomotives, producing high-speed, suburban, regional ...

, which was also the supplier of the steam turbines. The consortium that supplied steam generators was led by Babcock-Hitachi Europe GmbH. GEA Group built the cooling towers. Construction costs were €2.6 billion. The lignite used to fuel the plant is delivered by rail from open pit mines in the Rhenish lignite district (''Rheinisches Braunkohlerevier)'', in particular from the Garzweiler and Hambach mines. In the 1980s, a complete flue gas cleaning facility was installed for all blocks. Since then, the exhaust gases have mainly been expelled through the cooling towers instead of through dedicated chimneys. The facility has two

flue gas stack A flue-gas stack, also known as a smoke stack, chimney stack or simply as a stack, is a type of chimney, a vertical pipe, channel or similar structure through which flue gases are exhausted to the outside air. Flue gases are produced when coal, oi ...

s used to bypass the cooling towers, of which one belongs to units A, B and C and the other to units D and E. The first one is , the latter tall. These allow the facility to still generate power in case of a fault in the flue gas cleaning facility, however, as this rarely occurs, such chimneys do not exist at most other power stations. Note: Net nominal capacity has reduced since inauguration - the capacity listed above is the current, not initial capacity (total 4,211 MW as of August, 2017)

Criticism

The new power station is often criticised by environmental associations and physical custodians as part of discussions about climate change, because electricity generation from lignite as fuel, in spite of advanced technology, is considerably less efficient than other generation sources and makes the plant the second biggest source of carbon dioxide among plants in EU. The facility, with a planned lifespan of 40 years, is seen as inconsistent with Germany's and Europe's plans to counter climate warming, particularly after COP21. According to

, the power station is the 102nd largest point-source emitter of greenhouse gas globally. It is criticized furthermore that the investment efficiency is not maximized by additional measures like using of

waste heat Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work. All such processes give off some waste heat as a fundamental result of the laws of thermodynamics. Waste heat has lower utility ...

. One of the suggested projects is the establishment of a wide greenhouse park to use the waste heat from the plant and to create other jobs. However, the area planned for it was instead planned for industries with large electricity demand.

History

Between 2012 and 2018, the Neurath power station emitted over 30 million tons of CO₂ per year; emissions then fluctuated to 18.7 Mt in 2020 and 22.1 Mt in 2021. The power station was expected to close by April 2022, while remaining available if needed.

Accidents

In the evening of 25 October 2007, a major accident occurred on the construction site. A section of the scaffolding broke off, and buried several workers. Three construction workers were killed by the remains of the scaffold. Six others, who were seriously injured, were taken to surrounding hospitals. Nearly 300 application forces from the fire brigade, police, ambulances and charitable organizations were used for the rescue operation. In December 2008, the initiated preliminary proceedings were put because of careless homicide by the public prosecutor's office of Mönchengladbach. According to the certificate, the knot connections of the scaffold were laid out too weakly. Because there had been no knowledge of them, in this size for the first time to used components and their stability problems, the accident was not foreseen by the experts, according to the public prosecutor's office. Rather interpretation and construction have occurred under the rules of the technology. On 13 January 2008, a further deadly accident occurred in which an employee of a steel construction company was killed. After the above-mentioned accident in October 2007 and another accident in September 2007, this became the third deadly incident on the construction site.

References

External links