“Blackout in the Ruhr region”

Germany’s fifth largest power producer STEAG plans to shut down about half of its power production capacity sooner than originally planned, writes Jürgen Flauger in the Handelsblatt. The company that operates several hard-coal power plants in the Ruhr region had planned to shut down many of its fossil power plant units due to old age by 2025. However, low wholesale power prices and changes brought on by Germany’s energy transition forced the company to economise, writes the Handelsblatt. “We will take power plants off the grid much faster than planned,” Joachim Rumstadt, managing director at STEAG, told the newspaper. He announced that 800 to 1000 jobs would be cut, about one in four at STEAG.

Read the article (behind paywall) in German here.