• Insufficient profitability due to low service hours and wholesale prices

RWE Generation has decided to mothball the combined-cycle gas turbine plant Claus C, located in Maasbracht in the Netherlands, from July 1st onwards. As from this date, the plant will no longer be available to the electricity market. Low operating hours plus an extremely low wholesale price have made the operation of this plant unprofitable. This is mainly a consequence of the German energy transition, which is forcing renewable energy onto the Dutch grid. Against this backdrop, it was decided to discontinue the plant's operation for the time being. The network operator has been informed of this measure.

With an efficiency of just under 60 percent, the Claus C plant is one of the most modern plants of its kind. It was commissioned in 2012 and has a capacity of over 1,300 megawatts. Block A (610 MW) had already been mothballed at the beginning of last year and this latest decision means that no electricity will be produced at the site until the political and economic framework in continental Europe makes this viable again. RWE expects that besides coal-fired power plants high-efficiency gas-fired plants will have an important role to play in the future European energy mix. New opportunities for Claus C might arise from its favourable position close to the Belgian border.

About RWE Generation SE
Since 1 January 2013, RWE Generation SE has been the generation company in the RWE Group. The company pools the generation entities and engineering expertise of RWE Power in Germany, RWE Essent in the Netherlands, and RWE npower in the UK. The company has around 17,000 employees and more than 40 GW of power generation capacity.