Germany will pay utility companies billions of euros to speed up the shutdown of their coal-fired power plants as part of the country's efforts to fight climate change. Domestic lignite (brown coal) and imported bituminous (black coal) provide about a third of Germany's electricity. According to German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, operators of coal-fired power plants in western Germany will receive 2.6 billion euros ($2.9 billion) in compensation for turning their coal plants off early, and the country will pay 1.75 billion euros ($1.9 billion) for coal plant operators to do the same in the east. This compensation is in addition to around 40 billion euros ($44 billion) that the government has already promised to coal-mining regions to abandon the fossil fuel. Through this move, Germany plans to exit coal-fired generation by 2035–three years before the final deadline in 2038 for coal-fired electricity to be phased out.
