Germany plans to reactivate a coal-fired power plant in connection with national efforts to save natural gas supply for this winter.

The facility, Heyden near Hanover, will from next week until April generate electricity for the country’s network, informs plant operator Uniper.

With capacity of 875MW, the plant is one of the largest thermal generators in Germany.

The federal republic is otherwise planning to have fully discontinued firing the dirtiest of fossil fuels by 2038 at the latest, however, the war in Ukraine and associated supply disruptions in the energy market have obliged the country to temporarily resort to burning coal.

In early August, facility Mehrum was the first offline coal plant to resume production.

Other such power stations held in reserve to support grid balance in emergency situations will also be fired again to supply the grid with daily power.

Russia’s normally large volumes of natural gas pumped to Germany have dwindled during the war, thereby prompting Europe’s largest economy to reduce dependency on fuel from the war-waging country.

By permitting coal plants to operate, Germany hopes to refill its gas stockpiles before the cold season begins.

Most homes in the nation are heated with gas, and domestic industry is also highly dependent on the fuel.

Despite a substantial decline in Russian gas supply, Germany has managed to refill inventories to more than 75% capacity, shows a report from mid-August.

Berlin aims to have nearly filled national gas stockpiles before the winter.

On Oct. 1, the gas stores should be filled to 85% capacity, and then to at least 95% by Nov.1.

Here, 95% roughly equates to the total gas volume used by Germany in January and February this year.

Germany and other EU member states agreed in late July to cut gas use by 15% from Aug. 1 to the end of March next year.

States struck the agreement after Russian gas giant Gazprom announced reducing gas supply via pipeline Nord Stream 1 to 20% of transmission capacity.

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