Power Station Westerholt
Encyclopedia
Gelsenkirchen
Gelsenkirchen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the Ruhr area. Its population in 2006 was c. 267,000....
-Westerholt
Westerholt
Westerholt is a municipality in the district of Wittmund, in Lower Saxony, Germany....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. The power plant consisted of two units built in the 1960s, each capable of producing 150 MW of electricity
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
. Its smokestack, built in 1981, was over 337 metres (1104 feet) tall, making it Germany's tallest chimney at the time.
The power station was decommissioned on May 13, 2005. The chimney was demolished on Sunday, December 3, 2006, at 10:53 a.m..
The height of the smokestack, 337 metres, has been confirmed by the former operator of the power plant, E.ON Kraftwerke
E.ON
E.ON AG, marketed with an interpunct as E•ON, is the holding company of the world's largest investor-owned energy service provider based in Düsseldorf, Germany. The name comes from the Greek word aeon which means eternity....
.
It is the tallest structure in North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...
. Before its erection the Wesel transmitter tower took this claim. After the demolition of the chimney, the Wesel tower once again became the tallest structure in North Rhine-Westphalia.
A district heating
District heating
District heating is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralized location for residential and commercial heating requirements such as space heating and water heating...
plant, "FWK Westerholt", has been in operation on this site since the spring of 2004. There are six boiler
Boiler
A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications.-Materials:...
s there to provide heat for the district heating network of the northern Ruhr Area
Ruhr Area
The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region , is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km² and a population of some 5.2 million , it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany...
.
The Westerholt coal mine is located only a few hundred metres away. Both the power plant and the mine are on the city limits of Gelsenkirchen in the Hassel neighborhood and were named for the contiguous (and at that time still independent) city of Westerholt in what was then the district of Recklinghausen
Recklinghausen (district)
Recklinghausen is a Kreis in the middle of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Neighboring districts are Borken, Coesfeld, Unna,district-free cities Dortmund, Bochum, Herne, Essen, Gelsenkirchen and Bottrop, and the district Wesel.-History:...
(today the city is a part of the city of Herten
Herten
Herten is a town and a municipality in the district of Recklinghausen, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated in the industrial Ruhr Area, approx...
and is named "Herten-Westerholt").
External links
- Photos of Westerholt Power Station
- http://www.hfinster.de/StahlArt2/archive-PowerPlant-BW-2040-1-13.05.2003-de.html
- http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?b4758