How RWE wants to make a coal-fired power plant 'CO2 negative'

Marinus Tabak is plant manager at RWE. Together with his colleagues, he keeps the RWE power plant in Eemshaven running. Although coal is still the primary raw material, RWE wants to quickly become more sustainable through, among other things, the combustion of biomass. The company even thinks it can run the power plant 'CO2 negative' in the future. During the PPA event Tabak will tell you more about this.

By: Dimitri Reijerman

RWE is currently already busy with the energy transition. The energy company is partly driven by the government's Urgenda objectives, which require greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced by a quarter by 2020 compared to 1990. Tabak says: “We have a project underway here to switch from coal to biomass. and with this we save 1.5 million tons of CO2 per year.”

The Eemshaven power station is very suitable for this switch, says the RWE plant manager: “You need a different logistics system for a different fuel. But it is the most automated power plant in the Netherlands. We do a lot with intelligent sensors and things like artificial intelligence. We can operate the entire factory with eight people while producing power for three million people on a 55-hectare complex. We have automated everything: from digging out coal to filling the bunkers.”

“Our first project runs to 15 percent biomass,” says Tabak. “That's really working now. We are dependent on a subsidy program for this. Nothing can compete with coal in terms of price at the moment. Next steps also depend on the government.”

Optimism

Tabak says he wants to sound optimistic about making the Netherlands more sustainable: “We already have a lot of technology to achieve the objectives. The challenge is to become more sustainable and flexible. How do you do that? This involves technology and process automation. For example, for a new maintenance strategy, but also technology to become more flexible.”

He continues his optimistic story: “Our plan is to become CO2 negative. We can do that too. What you do is import biomass, for example with residual flows from forestry. Trees will also be planted again immediately. So no new CO2 is released into the air. But CO2 is still released during combustion. You can capture this at the chimney and store it underground or process it into products. This is how you become CO2 negative. You can store this offshore in empty gas fields.”

Currently, CCS (carbon capture and storage) is still too expensive. Tabak: “Is that financially feasible? No, not yet, that's because you compete with coal. We have to start thinking differently. For example, by making CO2 more expensive, providing subsidies or requiring green energy from the Netherlands. It is now up to politicians to make these choices.”

Tabak continues to maintain the optimistic tone: “We should not be so sour about the future, that is my message. When you open the newspaper, the world is worse than ever, while it is actually better than ever. For example, far fewer people live in extreme poverty. And stories that the energy transition will hurt are nonsense. I am very optimistic about that. You can do so much with technology.”

Greater ambitions

Tabak is also clear about criticism from some scientists who comment on the co-firing of biomass: “The IPCC, the largest club of scientists in the field of climate change, states that in 114 of the 116 calculations we cannot do without biomass, but then in combination with carbon capture and storage. Will biomass solve 100 percent of the problem? Absolutely not. Just like sun and wind cannot. It becomes one, one, one.”

Moreover, RWE has more ambitions than just burning biomass, says Tabak: “We want to build a hydrogen factory in Eemshaven together with Innogy. We are already number two in offshore wind. If you have a lot of wind and low power consumption, hydrogen is one of the solutions. In Eemshaven we want to connect an electrolyser to a wind farm. It looks very positive. We have made numerous requests to suppliers. We are now receiving responses to this and we can make a business case. The realization depends, among other things, on the incentive measures. Green hydrogen is far from competing with gray hydrogen. Ultimately, we want to supply the hydrogen to industry. That seems like a very logical step to us.”

The European Union has now formulated ambitious plans in a Green Deal to reduce EU emissions by 55 percent by 2030. Tabak is happy with this: “I think it's great that the EU is doing that. Biomass is also part of this, just like hydrogen and batteries. I hope that these plans will be followed by decisive action. There are a lot of ambitions, we can solve it.”

Would you like to attend Marinus Tabak's lecture? Register for free for the PPA event on January 28 in Den Bosch.