Thermal Power Plant Šoštanj

The case concerned the project of a new 600 MW lignite unit thermal power plant (TEŠ 6) located approximately 80 km north-east of Ljubjana. The project has been challenged before the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which provided financial support for the project irrespective of its impact and due dilligence issues.

The project locks Slovenia into high-carbon energy technologies for at least four more decades, extending Slovenia’s dependency on fossil fuels and making the national renewable energy targets much more difficult to achieve. The investor has attempted to justify the project by declaring the power plant to be “Carbon Capture and Storage-Ready”, claiming that a realistic possibility for the future deployment of Carbon Capture and Storage technology exists. However, experts revealed these claims to be very questionable. Jointly with the Bellona Foundation, Frank Bold prepared a report on the CCS assessment of the Sostanj power plant.

The main focus of the report is to progressively define a CCS assessment standard, as required by the EU Directive on Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide, and to propose the best practice for the CCS readiness assessment. The aim was to establish clear and strict requirements for assessing the CCS readiness of the proposed projects and ensure that investors and decision-makers evaluate the real climate impact of such projects.