Further to E.ON and RWE's announcements, Statkraft announced it had idled two gas-fired power plants in Germany. The Knapsack (800 MW) and Herdecke (417 MW) power plants commissioned in 2007 were incurring losses due to falling wholesale electricity prices and a surge in renewable power generation. The 1,200 MW have been put in the "wet reserve" meaning that the plants could be restarted in a relatively short time if needed. Earlier in 2013, the company had shut down the Robert Frank gas-fired unit (510 MW) while it has closed the Emden gas-fired power plant (450 MW) in 2012.
Last week RWE said it has decided to take a total of 3,010 MW of generation capacity offline in Germany and the Netherlands. In the Nertherlands, RWE will decommission the Amer 8 coal power plant (610 MW) by 2016 and mothball the Moerdijk 2 gas-fired power plant (430 MW) by end-2013. In Germany, RWE will mothball four gas-fired power plants for a total of 1,250 MW by mid-2014: Gersteinwerk F and G (355 MW each) as well as the Weisweiler G and H gas turbines (270 MW each). The Emsland B and C gas steam turbines (360 MW each) will be summer mothballed in 2014.
Previously, E.ON reported it had already mothballed its Tavazzano 8 power plant (300 MW, Italy) in the second quarter of 2013 and will mothball its 418 MW power plant in Malzenice (Slovakia) by end-2013. E.ON plan to mothball 575 MW of gas-fired power capacity in France in 2014. Since November 2012, E.ON has already taken offline 6,470 MW of capacity out of 11 GW planned until 2015.
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