At the union’s south-eastern members: Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia, it is especially evident that coal-fired thermal power plants still dominate EU’s top 10 CO2 emitters, according to the analysis published by think tank Ember.
Top three Bulgaria’s CO2 emitters are all coal-fired power plants: state-owned Maritsa East 2, followed by Maritsa East 3, operated by ContourGlobal, and TPP Galabovo , operated by AES. In Romania, coal-fired TPPs took two of the top three positions with TPP Rovinari and TPP Turceni, both operated by Energy Complex (EC) Oltenia.
In Slovenia, list of biggest CO2 emitters is topped by TPP Sostanj, operated by state-owned HSE, and coal-fired CHPP operated by Energetika Ljubljana. Croatia’s top polluter is TPP Plomin 2, operated by state-owned HEP.
Emissions of greenhouse gases from all operators covered by the EU ETS fell 8.7 % last year. Half of the drop in the electricity sector came from switching to gas from coal, while the remainder is attributed to new wind and solar installations.
The electricity sector accounted for over half (52 %) of EU ETS emissions in 2019. The segment dropped 13 % in nominal terms or by 129 megatons, due to the coal collapse. Emissions from systems using hard coal as fuel fell by 28 % (81 MT) compared to 18 % (60 MT) for lignite, offset by a 3 % (12 MT) rise in gas and oil-fuelled power plants.
