A German coal giant’s unlikely conversion to clean energy

The Lausitz: From Coal to Renewable Energy

There is a saying in the swath of eastern Germany known as the Lausitz that captures both the beauty of the region and the curse of its geology. “God created the Lausitz,” goes the expression. “But Satan put coal underneath.”

Local people did a deal with the devil over the past 100 years: they let mining machines carve chunks from the lush green forests, destroyed centuries-old villages to dig up millions of tonnes of the dirty lignite that lies under them and polluted the planet in the process. In exchange came thousands of jobs and the pride found in powering the German economic juggernaut.

But the pact is running out of time. Europe is grappling with a record-breaking heatwave that threatens to become more commonplace and the 2038 deadline when Germany’s coal-fired power plants must be switched off is looming. That poses an existential challenge for Leag, the coal giant headquartered in the Lausitz city of Cottbus, and the thousands of residents who rely on it for work.

Leag’s Pledge to Reinvent Itself

The company, which has four active opencast lignite mines and four coal-fired power stations, has made an unlikely pledge to reinvent itself as a powerhouse of renewable energy. At stake is not just the future of Germany’s second-biggest electricity producer behind RWE and its roughly 7,000 workers, but also the success of the energy transition in Europe’s largest economy, and the political and social prospects of this corner of the country’s former communist east.

“It’s the biggest energy transformation yet for Germany,” says Thorsten Kramer, the company’s chief executive, who previously helped transform a Spanish construction business into a renewables player. “In 15 years, our [current] business is over.”

Leag plans to use its vast holdings of land to build what it says will be Europe’s biggest solar farm and erect scores of wind turbines in a €10bn investment. The hope is that, by producing cheap, green energy, it will lure chipmakers, electric vehicle battery producers and tech companies of the kind that have already been dipping their toes in the water of other parts of the former German Democratic Republic, creating prosperity and jobs in the process.

Křetínský, who also owns stakes in the English Premier League club West Ham and is expected to take over the French retailer Casino, bought Leag via his sprawling conglomerate EPH from the Swedish group Vattenfall in 2016, months after the German government signed up to new emission targets at the Paris climate conference. The company’s pan-European coal operations generated more than €3bn of its €37bn in revenues last year.

Going Green

Joining one of Germany’s biggest coal companies might have seemed like an odd choice for Fabian von Oesen, a 34-year-old civil engineer who had spent most of the previous decade working on offshore wind. But von Oesen, who grew up not far from Cottbus, was drawn by the opportunity to turn one of Europe’s dirtiest companies green. “I feel needed and required,” says von Oesen, who has worked for Leag since 2019 and now heads the company’s renewables division. “That motivates me.”

Standing on the rooftop of the company headquarters, he points out three of Leag coal-fired power stations dotted across the horizon. At one of them, the 1970s-era Jänschwalde power plant, two mothballed units were brought back online last year as the Ukraine crisis forced Germany to increase coal production to compensate for the loss of Russian gas.

Later, von Oesen hops into an electric VW SUV and sets off on a drive out of the city, through fields of rye bordered by bright blue cornflowers. He stops at a scrubby wide open expanse — a former opencast mine that is slowly being filled with water with the aim of making it part of a man-made “lake district” that will draw visitors from across Germany and beyond.

In one still-dry section, rows of 34 tall steel rods protrude from the ground. They will support “floating” photovoltaic [PV] solar panels. “I’m extremely proud of this project,” says von Oesen, adding that many companies dismiss the idea of putting solar panels on water as too expensive. “Anyone can do a normal PV plant but we started with something like this.” He adds: “Even EPH, who are very focused on betting on coal, were open to making this possible.”

Combined with about 5,500 hectares of wind turbines and 6,000 hectares of land-based PV panels that will constitute one of Europe’s largest solar farms, they will form what Leag has branded its “gigawatt factory” — a renewable energy hub with a combined capacity of 7GW. The company plans to double that to 14GW by 2040.

The 7GW of renewable power capacity, which will be dependent on levels of wind and sunshine, will not directly equate to the 7GW capacity of Leag’s lignite power stations that are run around the clock and produce about 9 per cent of Germany’s electricity. That is partly why the plan also includes four new power plants fuelled by gas — seen by Berlin as a crucial “bridge” fuel in the energy transition — that can be adapted to use green hydrogen in future, as well as a power storage facility and a hydrogen production unit.

Leag does, however, have some big advantages, most notably its land holdings that stretch to 33,000 hectares, making it one of the biggest landowners in the region. It has gone on a hiring spree in recent years, recruiting about 100 experts in renewable energy.

A Town Divided

The upheaval of that time still hangs heavily over the Lausitz. Cottbus had been an important centre

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

1. SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy

   • Target 7.2: Increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix
   • Indicator 7.2.1: Renewable energy share in the total final energy consumption

2. SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

   • Target 8.5: By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value
   • Indicator 8.5.1: Average hourly earnings of female and male employees, by occupation, age, and persons with disabilities

3. SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure

   • Target 9.4: By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes
   • Indicator 9.4.1: CO2 emission per unit of value added

4. SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

   • Target 11.6: By 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management
   • Indicator 11.6.1: Proportion of urban solid waste regularly collected and with adequate final discharge out of total urban solid waste generated, by cities

5. SDG 13: Climate Action

   • Target 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries
   • Indicator 13.1.1: Number of deaths, missing persons, and directly affected persons attributed to disasters per 100,000 population

Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

Analysis

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

   The issues highlighted in the article are connected to the following SDGs:

   • SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
   • SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
   • SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
   • SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
   • SDG 13: Climate Action

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

   Based on the article’s content, the specific targets under the identified SDGs are:

   • Target 7.2: Increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix
   • Target 8.5: By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value
   • Target 9.4: By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes
   • Target 11.6: By 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management
   • Target 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be

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   Source: ft.com

    

   

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