HAZ comment on coal phase-out and energy transition in Hanover
Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz once flippantly said in a different political life that leadership is given to those who order leadership from him. Hanover’s mayor Belit Onay would hardly think of such a thing. It’s hardly broadcast in the green sociotope. But that doesn’t stop him from doing the same thing. Scholz talks about leadership, but doesn’t currently live it – and Onay thinks it’s exactly the other way around. A smart move.
The green mayor, who rather stumbled into office because the pandemic drained all his strength and took no notice of his conversion plans for the city and society, is slowly finding his feet. The leadership messages do not come out loud, but definitely come along. He’s serious about reducing car traffic in the city center – work on that has started.
At the same time, Onay is at least trying to shake up and stabilize the city administration, which is still partly caught up in inefficiency and uncertainty. And more quietly, he has now even succeeded in seizing an energy transition for Hanover, which, if successful, can set an example nationwide.
A major renovation is imminent – but no one says it out loud
If everything turns out the way it was originally intended, then Hanover will face the biggest renovation in centuries in this area. Nobody says that out loud. In essence, it is about heating central parts of the city largely via district heating and, at the same time, removing the gas pipeline network from the ground. Even if the only talk at the moment is to stop releasing new gas lines, that is only part of the truth. And the number of around 6,000 households that are subject to the new district heating obligation every year and are to be newly connected is, according to some in the town hall, just a beginning.
Onay is lucky at this point that the formerly all-powerful Hanoverian social democrats did not sell the municipal utilities in the earlier centuries. While the heads of town halls in Hamburg or Berlin are currently having to work out how to get the energy sector back under their control in order to be able to change it, Hanover can long since begin. Although Enercity is not a city-run company, it sometimes has to work that way.
If politicians are now demanding that the (heated) coal power plant in Stöcken be replaced in a climate-neutral manner by 2026, then the engineers at Ihmeplatz will have to get to work more or less reluctantly. This is tricky, but it can work well if everyone keeps an eye on Enercity’s earnings situation. However, there is little to fear at the moment – because the company, which was once as mousy as the corridors of its headquarters, has increased in speed and agility.
The plans are good – but will they work?
However, this operation is not without risk – technically, economically and also politically. Because healthy air is not created with petitions or resolutions. Burning the coal in sticks releases about 1.2 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually; It has not yet been decided whether this will ultimately be significantly less if, instead of coal, sewage sludge or bulky waste and “waste wood” are burned, as Enercity is planning. And nothing has been said about future prices. Especially since only the replacement of a power plant block is planned; about the second silence die in public persistently. However, without this and other highly complex solutions such as integrating excess industrial heat into the grid, the idea of largely ending gas heating in Hanover is just a nice plan. Onay will still have to show how far his lead really goes. He still has a lot to do.
By Henrik Brandt