Neurath Power Station

F2

The power plant Neurath, after the Belchatow power plant in Poland, measured by the gross electrical output produced the second largest lignite power plant in Europe. The operator RWE in Grevenbroich- Neurath ( Rhein-Kreis Neuss ). It is located in the south of Grevenbroich and adjacent to the area of ​​the municipality and the city Rommerskirchen Bedburg.

The power plant is the production of base- load power and has a gross electrical output of over 4400 MW. The coal is obtained from siding to the north-south railway from the opencast mines of the Rhenish lignite mining area, in particular the Garzweiler mine.

Power plant units

The power plant consists of seven blocks ( 3 x 300 MW, 2 × 600 MW and 2 × 1100 MW nominal), built 1972-1976 and 2012, and has a gross capacity of 4,400 MW.

Blocks A to E

In the 1980s, a flue gas cleaning system was retrofitted for the blocks A to E. Since the exhaust gases are removed via the cooling tower.

The facility also has two so-called bypass fireplaces, one of which is the AC blocks and the other blocks D to E assigned. The former is 194 meters, the latter 196 feet high. The bypass fireplaces allow the operation of the plant in case of a defective flue gas cleaning system, but this is rare and is why most power plants to bypass fireplaces waive ( Source: Press Office RWE).

All blocks feed into the transmission system operator's network Amprion a: Block A is on the substation Osterath on the 220 ​​kV level, the blocks B to D via the switchgear Opladen on the 380 kV level and the block E of the switchgear Rommerskirchen, also connected to the 380 kV level to the high voltage grid.

Blocks F and G ( " BoA 2 and 3")

History

In September 2005, RWE, the power plant, two new blocks (F and G) of the type " brown coal power station with optimized plant technology (BoA ) " decided to build. As a further development of the BoA block in the power plant Niederaußem (BoA 1) wear the new blocks also called " BoA 2 and 3". In January 2006, construction began. The BoA blocks are at an efficiency of 43 percent have a capacity of 1,100 MW. RWE was 2008, the building in which it constitutes one of the largest construction sites in Europe, encompasses a total investment of 2.2 billion euros. In December 2011 RWE admitted that the project with 2.6 billion euros was " significantly more expensive " become. The boiler houses of BoA BoA 2 and 3 are equipped with a height of 173 meters, the highest boiler houses in the world. The cooling towers are 172 meters high.

The originally planned commissioning in late 2009 was delayed due to the below mentioned accident in which a significant portion of the new building was destroyed. 29 November 2011 for the first time reached both blocks together full load and produced during the commissioning phase until then, more than 1.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. Both blocks were located since May and October 2011 at the test operation, the final commissioning with the message of the blocks at the EEX energy exchange took place on July 8, 2012 ( Block G ) and August 3 (Block F). Since then both blocks also dine in the transmission network of Amprion in 380 kV level and are connected via station Rommerskirchen.

Then took place on August 15, 2012, the official ceremony for the commissioning of the new blocks in the presence of North Rhine -Westphalia state premier Hannelore Kraft, German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier and other guests. Erroneously, it was in several media referred to as the world's largest brown coal power plant, in fact it is (behind the power station Belchatow, Poland), only the second-largest in Europe. The construction costs were given as 2.6 billion euros.

RWE took the end of 2011 and the spring of 2012, six of the twelve old 150 - MW units at the power plant Frimmersdorf from the mains.

Problems

On August 30, 2012 fell in the early afternoon within seven minutes, both BoA blocks due to an error in the control system from which a short-term capacity of approximately 2,100 MW had to be replaced. This led to frequency fluctuations in the power grid, but a power failure could be avoided through the use of control energy. According Amprion the European electricity grid is able to tolerate an unforeseen failure of up to 3,000 MW of power plant capacity, therefore no critical situation had arisen. In the early hours of the following day, the two blocks were raised again.

Accidents

On the evening of 25 October 2007 it came to the construction site to a major accident. A 100 -ton side wall bandage, a section of the Great stand, tore off and buried several assemblers among themselves. Three construction workers were found dead from the rubble of scaffolding only, six others were injured, some seriously taken to surrounding hospitals. Nearly 300 emergency personnel from fire, police, medical organizations and agencies for technical aid were in use. In December 2008, the proceedings initiated under investigation for involuntary manslaughter by prosecutors Mönchengladbach has been set. According to the report, the node connections of bandages substructure were too weak. Since it has no knowledge of which - for the first time used in this size - have given components and their stability problems, the accident for the professionals was not foreseeable, the prosecutor's office. Rather, design and construction according to the rules of the art were made.

Emission limits

The approval decision of 20 June 2005, the district government Dusseldorf has set emission limit values ​​for new units F and G, corresponding to at least the limits that were set when the application is in the 13th BlmSchV.

Pollutants with limits in daily average are monitored by continuously operating measuring instruments, the remaining values ​​by individual measurements. For comparison, the limits of the 13 BlmSchV (2004) are listed as well as in normal operation attainable with best available techniques, emission values ​​, as they are specified in the data sheet of the European Commission for correspondingly large new plants with brown coal dust firing on the basis of the data collection in 2001-2002.

A new data collection about updated best available techniques (BAT) organized by the European Commission since October 2011 and published in 2014 new BAT conclusions for large combustion plants. The fact of existing plants set achievable emission values ​​must be complied with in accordance with the valid European Industrial Emissions Directive not later than four years after the publication of the BAT conclusions in the Neurath power plant.

Emissions

Power plant Critics at the power plant Neurath the high emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, mercury and particulate matter, may adhere to the cancer -producing substances (nickel, cadmium, PAHs, dioxins and furans).

All coal-fired power plants are with reference to climate change in the criticism in environmental organizations and conservationists. The power generation from lignite remains one despite optimized plant technology (BoA ) to the technologies of energy that have the highest emissions of CO2 per kilowatt hour of electricity. The consumption of lignite per BoA unit is 820 tons per hour, so together 1640 tons.

Although the efficiency is about 43% - a world record for lignite - which the two new blocks, according to RWE compared to old power plants to save on lignite about 1 /4 of CO2 emissions, but in absolute terms, CO2 emissions are about 16 million tons per year. About 950 grams of carbon dioxide are emitted per kilowatt hour electric, which is almost twice as much as the average German electricity mix ( 494 g CO2/kWh ). For comparison, modern gas - and -steam combined cycle power plants such as the 2011 went into operation in block 4 of the power plant Irsching emit only slightly more than 330 g of CO2 per kWh at an efficiency of 60.4 %.

On published by the WWF in 2007 List of klimaschädlichsten power plants in the EU, the Neurath power plant was ranked in 2006 ranked 7th in Europe and ranked 5th in Germany (1150 g CO2 per kilowatt hour), according to the power plants Niederaußem, Jaenschwalde, Frimmersdorf and Weisweiler.

There has been criticism that the system efficiency is not maximized by additional measures such as combined heat and power. A certain portion of the waste heat uses since summer 2011, a greenhouse park. At 11 hectares ( 110,000 square meters = 0.11 = square kilometers) are eg Tomatoes grown.

The power plant Neurath reported the following pollutant emissions in the European Register " PRTR "

Other typical pollutant emissions were not reported because they are reportable from a minimum annual amount in the PRTR only, eg Dioxins and furans from 0.0001 kg, cadmium from 10 kg, 50 kg of nickel, chromium and copper from 100 kg of lead and zinc from 200 kg of ammonia and nitrous oxide ( N2O) from 10.000 kg volatile organic compounds except methane (NMVOC ) of 100,000 kg.

The European Environment Agency has estimated the cost of the environment and human health of the 28,000 largest industrial facilities in Europe based on the reported in the PRTR emissions data with the scientific methods of the European Commission. Then the Neurath power plant caused the eight highest damage costs of all European industrial plants.