Irsching 3 oil-fired power plant to be returned to electricity market as part of replacement power plant maintenance law

Source: Energy & Management Powernews , December 01 2022

Uniper will return the Irsching 3 power plant to the electricity market. With its capacity of 415 MW, the oil-fired power plant is intended to strengthen the security of supply in southern Germany.

It is planned that Irsching 3 in Vohburg, Bavaria, will return to the market from February until the end of 2023. Uniper announced this on the transparency platform of the German power trading exchange EEX. It said the move was part of the German government's "Substitute Power Plant Readiness Act" to secure energy supplies in the coming winters.

The law aims to ensure that as little gas as possible is consumed for power generation and replaced by other energy sources. Previously, Uniper had already reactivated the two coal-fired power plants Heyden 4 (875 MW) and Scholven C (345 MW) in North Rhine-Westphalia within this framework.

The unit 3 near Ingolstadt, which is operated with light fuel oil, has a net electrical output of 415 MW and, according to the energy group, will essentially serve as a back-up for the rest of the Uniper power plant portfolio in order to avoid critical situations in the grid in the event of gas shortages. Currently, Irsching 3 is held and used in the grid reserve by the transmission system operator Tennet. Immediately after the supply security deployment at the end of 2023 - after almost 50 years - the final decommissioning is to take place.

In addition to unit 3, the Irsching site still consists of two gas-fired units. The Ulrich Hartmann power plant (unit 4) operated by Eon has a capacity of 561 MW and went into operation in 2011. With an efficiency of 60.4 percent, it is considered one of the most efficient combined cycle plants in the world. The Irsching 5 joint-venture power plant has been on the grid since 2010 and has an efficiency of 59.7 percent. In addition to Uniper, which holds 50.2 percent of the shares, N-Ergie (25.2 percent), Mainova (15.6 percent) and Entega (9 percent) also have stakes in Irsching 5.

A new gas turbine (unit 6) is also currently being built at the site, which is intended to safeguard grid stability in emergencies as so-called "special grid-related equipment." Completion is scheduled for 2023.

Author: Günter Drewnitzky