The German Ministry for Economy and Energy has published its legislative strategy to phase-out coal, to implement the recommendations of the "Growth, structural change and employment" Commission, namely reducing coal-fired capacity to 30 GW in 2022 (including 15 GW of lignite-fired power plants) and to 17 GW in 2030 (9 GW lignite), to reach zero coal-fired capacity in 2038. Germany currently operates around 41 GW of coal-fired power capacity that supplied more than a third of the country's power generation in 2018.
In May 2019, the Federal government approved the key points of the structural funding programme for coal mining regions, making available a €40bn financial support for the regions affected by the coal exit by 2038. The Ministry is now working on a draft bill, which will be soon submitted to the government and the coal phase-out law should be adopted by the end of the year.
According to the draft, Germany will organise tenders for coal closure compensation payments: the operators of coal-fired power plants will bid a price for the closure of their plant and those offering the lowest cost per CO2 emission will be awarded compensation.
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