German utility RWE AG (RWE.XE) said Wednesday it has shelved plans to build a coal-fired power plant with large-scale carbon capture and storage technology, a year after it said the project would be delayed due to a lack of adequate legislation.

"We've put the project on the back burner," Johannes Lambertz, chief executive of RWE's power generation unit RWE Power, told reporters at one of its power plant sites in Germany.

The proposed 450-megawatt coal-fired CCS demonstration plant in Huerth, near the western German city of Cologne , was originally expected to be operational in 2015, but RWE delayed the project in November 2009, citing an absence of laws that allow the storage and transport of carbon dioxide.

CCS is considered crucial to make coal-fired power plants, which generate the bulk of Europe 's electricity, more environmentally friendly. The European Union wants 12 demonstration plants built by 2020 and plans to support selected projects financially.

Germany still doesn't have a CCS law that allows the transport and storage of CO2 extracted in power generation. The government is, however, working on a bill that would allow the operation of demonstration power plants with CCS technology.

RWE Power's Lambertz Wednesday also said the company may resume the Huerth project in the future.

"We've documented the entire engineering work," Lambertz said, adding that this would allow RWE to resume the project at any point in the future.

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