Czech Počerady power plant must shut down after court revokes mercury exemption, ecologists say

The Regional Court in Ústí nad Labem today revoked the coal-fired Počerady power plant’s exemption from the mercury emissions limit. Court spokesperson Veronika Suchoňová told the Czech News Agency (ČTK). The ruling is final as of today. The court upheld a lawsuit filed by environmental organizations, which said in a statement to ČTK that the power plant will now have to halt operations. The plant, in the Louny district, is owned by the Sev.en Energy group. Spokesperson Eva Maříková told ČTK that the company’s management must first study the ruling in detail before commenting on it.

According to Eliška Beranová, a lawyer with the Frank Bold organization, the court revoked the exemption because of serious shortcomings in establishing the facts. As a result, the emissions limits granted to the power plant under the exemption were significantly overstated.

The organizations say there is no risk that halting operations would leave Czechia without enough electricity. Sev.en Energy owner Pavel Tykač had already considered closing the power plant in spring 2025.

The power plant has five units. According to the environmental organizations, the operator should have taken two of them offline on 1 July, when part of their exemption expired. Had the court not revoked the exemption, it would have expired for another unit on 31 December and for the final two units on 30 June 2025, the organizations said.

According to Maříková, the group has been working intensively to meet environmental limits since taking over the Počerady power plant in 2021. „It is in our interest to minimize the environmental impact of generation at Počerady. The dispersion study we submitted with our exemption application clearly shows that the exemption has a negligible or even immeasurable impact on the environment,“ Maříková said.

Each unit has a capacity of 200 megawatts. The Počerady power plant has 277 permanent employees. The operator had applied to extend the exemption until the end of April 2027. The exemption was decided by the Ústí nad Labem Regional Authority.