The Dutch government has announced plans to retire Nuon's 650 MW Hemweg-8 hard coal-fired unit by the end of 2019, five years earlier than originally planned. The decision comes in the wake of the 2018 court order instructing the government to make sure greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are reduced by at least 25% by the end of 2020 from 1990 levels.
In May 2018, the government confirmed plans to shut down the country's remaining five coal-fired power plants by 2030 at the latest. Phasing out coal-fired power plants will be the first step towards achieving the Netherlands' target to cut GHG emissions by 25% cut by 2020 and by 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 CO2 levels.
The two oldest plants, namely Nuon's 650 MW Hemweg-8 hard coal-fired unit and RWE's 600 MW Amercentrale coal-fired power plant that have been in operation since 1994, will be the first to be shut down, by 2020 and 2024, respectively. The three most recent units, namely RWE's two-unit 1,560 MW Eemshaven power plant and Uniper's 1,100 MW Maasvlakte-3 unit - commissioned in 2015 and 2016 - will have to stop operations by the end of 2029. RWE is challenging the coal phase-out policy, claiming that it invested €3.2bn in its newest plants at the request of the government, which will not offer any compensation for the closure.