German utility group RWE will bring the closure of its coal-fired plants up to eight years earlier, but at the same time two of its lignite-fired plants, which were due to close at the end of this year, will remain part of Germany’s power grid until March 2024, the German Minister of Economy, Robert Habeck, said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.

“These plants will remain online until the end of March 2023, due to the loss of Russian natural gas supplies and the loss of French nuclear plants,” said Robert Habeck, at a press conference.

Meanwhile, RWE CEO Markus Krebber announced on Tuesday that under a deal agreed with the German government, the utility group will stop producing coal-fired electricity by 2030, speeding up by eight years plans that they aimed at shutting down coal-fired power plants, according to Agerpres.

“We will end lignite-based electricity production in 2030, which is twice as fast as expected. In the current crisis, we are contributing to the security of supply in Germany by temporarily increasing the use of our lignite-fired power plants and thus helping to replace gases from electricity production. At the same time, we are investing billions of euros to accelerate the energy transition and we are ready to phase out lignite by 2030,” said Markus Krebbert.

The agreement agreed by RWE with the Berlin Government is intended to ensure Germany’s energy supply and save natural gas in the context of the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. Despite higher demand for lignite in the next 15 months, RWE Group has ruled out opening new locations for lignite mining.