Czech Supreme Administrative Court rejects Počerady power plant's appeal, stripping it of mercury emissions exemption

The Czech Supreme Administrative Court (NSS) rejected an appeal by Elektrárna Počerady against last year’s ruling that stripped it of an exemption allowing higher mercury emissions. The exemption had not been preceded by sufficiently representative emissions measurements. The administrative authorities also departed from related methodological guidance without properly explaining their approach, according to the ruling, which is temporarily available on the official notice board.

The exemption considered by the administrative courts would in any case have expired at the end of June this year. The brown coal-fired power plant in the Louny area recently received a new exemption. The Ústí nad Labem Regional Authority set a maximum amount of mercury the plant may still emit. After that, it must cease operations, according to environmental groups. The regional authority’s decision is not final. Sev.en Česká energie, which owns the plant, wants to operate it for as long as possible.

"We are currently reviewing the latest non-final decision by the Ústí nad Labem Regional Authority on extending the emissions exemption until August 2029. We are striving to keep the Počerady power plant operating for as long as possible, also because the state still needs energy from coal-fired power plants," company spokesperson Eva Maříková told the Czech News Agency (ČTK) today.

The previous exemption was granted by the Ministry of the Environment in 2019. Greenpeace filed a lawsuit, following which the Regional Court in Ústí nad Labem last year overturned both the ministry’s decision and the regional authority’s first-instance decision that preceded it. The court pointed to shortcomings in the measurements and a departure from the ministry’s earlier methodological guidance.

Elektrárna Počerady filed an appeal. It described the regional court’s ruling as unlawful and unreviewable. The model solution set out in the methodological guidance was allegedly unrealistic, so the administrative authorities had to depart from its literal wording.

According to the regional court, however, the administrative authorities should either have met the guidance’s requirements in full or provided sufficient reasons for departing from them. "The administrative authorities chose neither of these options, thereby seriously undermining the administrative proceedings in a way that affected the lawfulness of the decision; the defendant’s decision is also unreviewable. The NSS considers this assessment correct," the NSS ruled.

"The extent of these shortcomings affects the lawfulness of the decision, since the emissions limit set out in its operative part is based on the data from the measurements, and those data are also used to assess whether environmental protection standards will be maintained," the NSS concluded.