Coal plants demand billions from government: ‘Farmers have it, we don’t’

It seems like a contradiction. The owners of these coal-fired power plants are facing charges against the same government the day after the government announced that coal-fired power plants would ramp up to avoid a gas crisis. Reason: Coal Ban Act.

By 2030, no more coal will be mined. At that time, coal-fired power stations did not yet have a place in the Netherlands. For example, they will have to be shut down or converted into a biomass plant.

According to the defense of their lawyers, the owners of these plants, the German energy companies RWE and Uniper, are not being compensated and are furious about this. Households and companies receive substantial subsidies to increase their sustainability. Farmers have to stand up for the common good, and a bag of money is ready for that.

“Almost the whole of the Netherlands receives money,” said RWE’s lawyer, but the coal-fired power stations themselves have to make up for lost income and investments that have not been recouped.

High price

For example, the construction of the Eemshaven coal-fired power station cost 3.2 billion euros and was ‘paid entirely out of pocket’. According to RWE, this was due to an unexpected shutdown of less than half its lifespan, which prompted the government itself to convince companies to build coal-fired power stations in the Netherlands.

According to the energy company, the conversion to a biomass plant entails a lot of uncertainty. The question is whether such a biomass power station is profitable and whether the government will also close biomass power stations in the long term. According to energy companies, the government has not proven to be a reliable partner. “RWE also guarantees that you play against one person. Biomass Ban Act to get up”.

RWE is asking 1.4 billion euros. Uniper is just under 1 billion.

For the state, this is a matter of principle: to what extent should the state buy pollutants if they are going to pollute the environment? It is not possible for every polluting company to become more sustainable in the future and ask for money because it cannot survive in a greener society.

Uniper and RWE’s claim that they did not see the coal ban coming breaks the record. After all, the urgency of the climate problem was known. According to the public prosecutor, every company had to take into account that the government “will eventually set a limit on CO2 emissions”.

Coal will disappear anyway

Moreover, according to the State, everything points to the fact that no more coal will be used in Europe by 2030. Then CO2 emissions will become so expensive that coal and coal-fired power stations have no place in the economy anyway. Not through politics, but through market forces.

Finally, the government gave companies another eleven years to convert their coal-fired power stations and find a different, more sustainable revenue model.

The state is all the more unhappy that RWE and Uniper are not satisfied with seeking damages from the national court. They have also started the arbitration proceedings. Subsequently, it is determined outside the national court whether a company is entitled to compensation from a state.

If a company does not trust the relevant national court, it usually prefers this, for example because it is affiliated with a corrupt (poorer) country. The fact that this is now also preferred for Dutch affairs did not go down well in The Hague.

Response from polluting companies

But The Hague could wet his chest. SOMO researcher Bart-Jaap Verbeek thinks we will see more polluting corporate arbitration cases in the near future. After environmental clubs like Urgenda, which are going to court to demand a stricter climate policy, it is now getting a backlash from large polluting companies.

“We are already seeing oil and gas companies file an arbitration against measures to ban or phase out oil and gas exploration.”

higher salary

According to Verbeek, companies often have a greater chance of receiving higher compensation through such arbitration proceedings. “RWE and Uniper are also likely to go to arbitration.”

The state is now seeking to quash its arbitration claim in a German court. “It’s unprecedented,” RWE’s lawyer said, adding that the company does not want to receive double compensation.

Source: RTL

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