The Emile-Huchet coal-fired power station in Saint-Avold (Moselle), which closed last March, started producing electricity again on Monday morning, site director Philippe Lenglart said. The temperatures, until now relatively mild, are now “‘seasonal’ and we are called to produce from 9 am this (Monday),” he said, confirming information from various media.
The Emile-Huchet plant, one of the last of the French fleet to run on coal, was going to close its doors permanently at the end of March, but the government did not rule out restarting it “as a precaution”. to secure the country’s electricity supply given the conflict in Ukraine and setbacks experienced by EDF’s nuclear fleet.
At the end of June, the Government had thus announced its desire to reopen it in the winter season, a restart that “is part of the closure plan”, the Ministry of Energy Transition had then stressed. The ministry had insisted that Emmanuel Macron’s commitment to shut down all coal-fired power plants in France remained “unchanged”.
More than 500,000 tons of coal are needed
The purchasing power law passed in early August also included a measure allowing GazelEnergie to rehire employees this winter. More than half would retire and the youngest would be reclassified within the company’s new projects. GazelEnergie plans, among other things, to build a biomass boiler to replace the coal-fired power plant. In total, more than 500,000 tonnes of coal will be needed to run the site through the end of March which, when operating at full capacity, produces up to 600 megawatt hours and can power a third of the homes in the Greater East region. .
There is only one other coal-fired power station, in Cordemais (Loire-Atlantique), still open in France. In France, more than 67% of the electricity produced is of nuclear origin, with the proportion of fossil fuels being 7.5% in 2020, including 0.3% coal and 6.9% gas.
Source: BFM TV
