For example, the Association of Municipal Companies, VKU, to which many municipal utilities belong, is more positive. In a statement, he fundamentally welcomes the proposal to »recognize natural gas as a sustainable transitional technology in terms of taxonomy«. It is an important signal that the fuel is in line with European climate targets because it paves the way for the transition to truly green energy.
Two difficult paths lead to the green label
However, the organization is struggling with the details of the EU proposal. The restrictions are “so narrow that they create unnecessarily high hurdles for financing that do not make sense in terms of climate policy”. What these are can be seen in the confidential draft, which was leaked by the news portal Euractiv, for example. Accordingly, there are two paths for gas power plants, one steep and one rocky.
The steep path: Plants may only emit less than 100 grams of CO2 generate electricity per kilowatt hour, and this includes all losses during production and transport as well as the exhaust gases during operation. That is not possible with today’s technology, even less than 350 grams are difficult, say experts. Maybe you can come up with the CCS technology, in which the CO2 is filtered from the exhaust gases and stored underground, reliably below 100 grams. Alternatively, in order to achieve such values, the plants would have to burn substantial amounts of biogas, with which there are other problems, or hydrogen, which has been produced with the help of green electricity . Such substitute fuels are called »climate-neutral gases«.
The rocky road: The plants must be approved by 2030 and, as part of a government phase-out program, replace climate-damaging power plants that burn solid or liquid fuels, i.e. coal or oil. The emission of greenhouse gases must be reduced by at least 55 percent, and at the same time it must be demonstrably impossible to transfer the same task to a renewable energy source.
In addition, the power plants must burn at least 30 percent climate-neutral gases from 2026. In 2030 the rate will increase to 55 percent, in 2036 to 100 percent. And here, too, there are rules for the emission of carbon dioxide. Either the system permanently emits less than 270 grams per kilowatt hour of electrical energy, or it has to observe a limit value on average over 20 years that is based on the installed electrical output. That alone, even for very efficient systems, means that they don’t supply much more than 1500 to 2000 of the 8760 hours of electricity in a year.
Critics say that hardly any gas-fired power plant can meet the requirements
These numbers sparked the detailed criticism of the experts from the VKU. In a statement, the Association of Public Utilities complained about the “unachievable quotas for climate-neutral gases”. On the other hand, he had wished for higher limit values. In addition, according to the VKU, those systems would be worse off that use electricity and Generate district heating and are therefore practically in continuous operation at least during the heating season. Many cities need just such facilities, but they cannot meet the requirements of the taxonomy, either in terms of emissions or by using the 20-year averaging rule, because it is not designed for them. The lobby organization therefore demands that the state directly subsidizes the power plants that are then not built according to the conditions of the EU taxonomy.