For more than a year, no more smoke has come out of the imposing chimney that crowns the concrete cubes making up the factory in Moorburg, an outlying district of the city of Hamburg (north).

This thermal power plant – one of the most modern in the country – was closed early in the summer of 2021, only six years after its commissioning, in exchange for public subsidies intended to reduce coal in the German energy mix.

When the government resolved, faced with the risk of a major energy crisis this winter, to restart certain power stations to compensate for the drastic drop in Russian gas deliveries, all eyes turned to the Moorburg turbines.

But the company Vattenfall, its Swedish owner, quickly showered hopes: “it is not possible that the plant will reopen”, she said this week.

– Looking for labor –

“You don’t restart a factory like that,” sums up Gudrun Bode, spokesperson for Vattenfall, who points to the “rust” of the installations, after a year of inactivity.

The coalition of Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz has allowed 27 coal-fired power stations to resume production for a limited period, until March 2024.

Since the announcement, at the end of June, of these possible restarts, only one plant has reopened at full capacity: that of Mehrum, at the beginning of August, near Hanover (north) with a capacity of 690 MWh.

The sector, like all German industry, is sorely lacking in manpower.

In Moorburg, “most of those who left have found jobs elsewhere, or are retired,” said Robert Wacker, director of the plant.

“The need for labor represents several hundred jobs”, confirms to AFP the energy group RWE, which is preparing the reopening of three blocks of 300 MWh each.

In early July, the central Jänschwalde (east), 150 kilometers from Berlin, said it was looking to recruit a hundred employees.

Some power plants have already been partially dismantled.

This is the case in Moorburg, which must convert to the hydrogen sector, a priority for Germany’s energy future.

In the turbine hall, thousands of small spare parts are stored in boxes. A rotator, the element that allows the turbine to turn, is wrapped in aluminum, ready for shipment.

The transformer, a large rectangle stored in front of the building, allowing electricity to be sent to the network, no longer has all its parts either.

– Traffic jam –

Coal supply is just as delicate.

The low water level in the country’s rivers, subject to severe drought, considerably slows down the river transport of goods, and in particular of raw materials. The road and rail transport networks are overloaded.

Result: the coal-fired power plant of the energy company Uniper, Heyden 4, in the west of the country, will restart on Monday but not at full speed.

Its operation will be “limited due to the insufficient capacity for rail transport of coal to the site”, said the German group about this unit, the largest of the 27 authorized by the government.

Energy supplier STEAG also plans to pull two plants from its reserve, setting November as a possible restart date. But he warns that it will be difficult to comply with the rule of having coal reserves for 30 days of operation at full load “given the tense logistical situation of rail transport”.

To cope, Berlin has just adopted a decree giving priority to rail convoys delivering coal on passenger trains, an unprecedented measure.

This increased use of coal is a disavowal for the German coalition, in which the Greens participate who hold the portfolio of the Economy. The share of coal in power generation in Germany was 27.4% in 2021, steadily declining in recent years.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz assures not to give up his objective of abandoning this polluting energy in 2030, and excludes “a renaissance of fossil fuels”.