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Czech Republic should prepare for phase-out of coal power plants, says IEA

Oil&Gas Materials 17 September 2021 15:54 (UTC +04:00)
Czech Republic should prepare for phase-out of coal power plants, says IEA

BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept.17

By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:

The Czech Republic should prepare for the phase-out of coal power plants, Trend reports with reference to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

IEA also recommends the country to accelerate the approval procedure for the legislation to promote renewable energies (amendment to Act 165/2012) for the period after 2021, to avoid missing mid- and long-term decarbonisation goals.

The country needs to prepare and initiate legislation for promoting renewable and low-carbon fuels that are not covered under Act 165/2012 to help achieve emissions reductions and climate targets in the most cost-effective way, according to IEA.

“The Czech Republic should revisit the technical potential for the integration of variable renewable electricity into the system by studying best practice examples of countries that have already reached much higher shares of these renewables into their systems. Together with stakeholders, the country needs to assess the full economic potential of all available forms of renewable energies and accordingly develop road maps to achieve those potentials to, in particular, prepare for the phase-out of coal power plants,” said the agency.

The Czech Republic has experienced significant growth in the renewable energy sector, with the share of renewables in TFEC increasing from 11 percent in 2010 to 16% in 2019. As the country’s renewable energy targets are mainly driven by obligations under the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive for the period to 2020, the country set itself a modest target rather than an ambitious one. The government set a target to achieve a renewables share in gross final consumption of 13% for 2020, which was already surpassed in 2013. As a result of this modest target, the country’s shares of renewables in electricity and transport (12% and 5% respectively in 2019) rank among the lowest in the IEA. The government expects a notable increase of renewable electricity production based on projections made for the NECP. In 2020, 10.3 TWh of electricity was generated using renewable energy sources. According to the government, up to 22 TWh of electricity from renewable sources can be integrated into the system without causing stability problems. By 2030, a total of 12.7 TWh of renewable electricity generation is expected to be fed into the electricity system.

The IEA considers the 22 TWh limit to be a rather low projection, as the country is well interconnected with other countries and the interconnection rate is expected to further increase. The government should study examples of other IEA countries that have achieved a much higher penetration of variable renewables with considerably lower levels of interconnection capacity. The IEA also notes that the projections about the potential for growth of renewables included in the NECP and those made by the renewable industry are not in line with each other.

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