Planet Ark : More German CHP plants seen due to subsidy deadline

Planet Ark : More German CHP plants seen due to subsidy deadline: "FRANKFURT - The German local utility of Muenster said it had decided to build a new gas and steam plant to take advantage of environmental subsidies paid if such plants are applied for by the end of first quarter 2003.

The approaching deadline means more such proposals should be coming in from among Germany's 950 local utilities, said a spokeswoman from the western German town, which uses 1.2 billion kilowatt hours of power and 2.45 billion kWh of gas a year.

'Our supervisory board decided on Tuesday to invest 74.7 million euros ($74.63 million) in a new combined heat and power (CHP) plant to replace our old coal plant,' she said.

'Like many other utilities, we needed to apply for planning permission by April 1, 2003, to qualify for the CHP subsidies.'

CHP plants are subsidised under a 4.5 billion euros payment scheme passed in January, which benefits operators who feed power derived from the environmentally friendly process into public energy transmission grids."