Together with other environmental organizations, we succeeded in revoking a derogation from the emission levels associated with the best available techniques for the Počerady Power Plant, the largest producer of greenhouse gases in the Czech Republic. The illegal derogation allowed the plant to emit unprecedented amounts of toxic mercury. Now it is the turn of the Ministry of the Environment to push for an end to the ongoing illegal situation.
As of August 2021, all coal-fired power plants across the European Union are required to comply with new emission limits to ensure that burning fossil fuels does not cause excessive pollution. For the first time in the history of Czech Republic, these emission limits regulate the amount of toxic mercury that escapes into the environment when coal is burned, where it remains for thousands of years.
In order to meet the new emission limits, coal-fired power plant operators have had to install new technology in their often outdated plants. These technologies are widespread and available in the EU region at a cost commensurate with the overriding environmental and human health benefits.
The vast majority of coal-fired power plant operators have respected the new rules - installing green technologies in a timely manner or ceasing operations if the investment required was too high given the obsolescence of the plant.
Only a few operators requested a temporary derogation from the requirement to meet the required emission levels. They claimed that they actually wanted to comply with the limits but could not install all the necessary technologies in time. In order to obtain a derogation, they had to demonstrate that delaying the investment would not cause significant pollution. In the case of mercury derogationss, the pollution was in the lower hundreds of kilograms of the pollutant compared to the emissions that would have been produced if the regular emission limit values had been applied.
Only in the case of the Chvaletice Power Plant and the Počerady Power Plant was the environmental pollution above the new limits more than one tonne of mercury for each of these plants. That is such a significant amount of the toxic substance that a derogation cannot be awarded, since the condition of no significant pollution is not met here.
Although experts from Frank Bold, along with other NGOs, warned the authorities of the serious environmental impact such a derogation would have, the plant was nevertheless granted one. The decision was taken by the Regional Authority of the Ústí Region, which at the time was receiving millions in donations from the plant operator. These had quadrupled during the period of its decision.
The Ministry of the Environment eventually approved the emission exemption. While other coal-fired power plants are not allowed to emit more than 7 micrograms of mercury per m3 of waste air, the Počerady Power Plant was allowed to emit up to four times the amount of this toxic substance (28 micrograms/m3).
In addition, the derogation was granted for individual units of the plant for three to four years, which is contrary to the basic principle that environmental exemptions should last only for the strictly necessary period of time.
As the expert group Frank Bold and the environmental associations did not convince the authorities, they had to go to court to have the illegal derogation revoked. And in August 2024, three years after the derogation was granted, the court finally proved them right.
The Regional Court in Ústí nad Labem revoked the derogation because neither the operator nor the authorities had proved that the emission limit value set in the derogation really had to be so unprecedentedly high. In fact, the emission limit should be set at the lowest possible value of emissions that the operator is able to achieve.
This was not the case for the Počerady power plant. The operator proposed an emission limit value on the basis of too short emission monitoring, the results of which cannot be considered representative. In addition, during the monitoring, he did not put into operation all the green technologies that were already installed at the plant. The monitoring thus resulted in a significantly higher value than the operator was actually able to achieve.
Thanks to the derogation, the operator not only did not have to comply with the proper emission limits, but could even increase its emissions, since the exceptionally high emission limit provided him with a sufficiently large 'elbow room'.
The Regional Authority of the Ústí Region is now obliged to respect the court's decision and order the plant to comply with the proper emission limit values. In order for the operator to be able to do so, he must now urgently install new technologies or stop operations.
But the whole situation is getting more complicated. The operator applied for an extension of the derogation and the regional authority granted it (before the court decision). Granting this "new" derogation would mean releasing more than two tonnes of mercury into the environment and continuing excessive emissions until 2027.
The extension of the (revoked) derogation is now being evaluated by the Ministry of the Environment. It is now up to the Ministry to decide whether the regional court's ruling will actually be effective and put an end to the unprecedented discharge of mercury into the environment once and for all, or whether different rules apply to billionaires profiting from fossil fuels than to others.
Environmental Law Service is co-organising a half-day conference on lobbying transparency, ethics regulation and citizens participation, taking place in Brussels on 16 November.
In a landmark intervention, in 2010, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) requested a transboundary environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the Prunéřov II brown coal-fired power plant in the Czech Republic. FSM asserted its right to be heard as a sovereign state because the plant’s greenhouse gas emissions may contribute to climate change impacts. We provided FSM with legal support throughout the legal proceedings in the Czech Republic.
