Open letter against the Pego power station coal-to-biomass conversion
Channel: Acréscimo Apif
Date: 2021-07-12

Help us to STOP the Pego power station coal-to-biomass conversion! 

Trustenergy, the main shareholder of Pego power station in Portugal and a joint venture between ENGIE and Marubeni, has announced its intention to convert the power station’s coal burning unit (due to close in Nov. this year) to burning wood pellets. 

Burning such large quantities of pellets would have huge impacts both in Portugal and internationally. The impacts of biomass burning for electricity generation in Portugal are already devastating ecologically and, on top of this, a conversion would rely either on massively expanding areas of eucalyptus plantations in Portugal, or importing large quantities of wood or pellets from countries like the USA, Canada and Brazil (or both). 

Converting Pego will require large amounts of public subsidy, and Trustenergy hopes to access millions from the EU’s Just Transition Fund (JTF). The JTF was set up to help coal-dependent communities move away from dirty energy and not to simply finance false climate solutions.  

For these reasons, an open letter signed by nine environmental NGOs in Portugal and supported by more than 50 groups internationally has been published to demand that the Portuguese Government and the European Commission DO NOT use public funds to finance a coal-to-biomass conversion at Pego power station.

Please help us to spread the word: This toolkit has everything you need to get involved!
 
Open letter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eRgtsBxiipgxKBe19qf8mPwcWVGyteTWOgctAPnMMLg/edit?usp=sharing