Westerholt Power Station was a coal fired power station in

Gelsenkirchen Gelsenkirchen (, , ; ) is the List of cities in Germany by population, 25th-most populous city of Germany and the 11th-most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher, Emscher River (a tribu ...

Westerholt Westerholt is a municipality in the district of Wittmund, in Lower Saxony, Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the A ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. The power plant consisted of two units built in the 1960s, each capable of producing 150 MW of

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

. Its

smokestack A chimney is an architectural ventilation structure made of masonry, clay or metal that isolates hot toxic exhaust gases or smoke produced by a boiler, stove, furnace, incinerator, or fireplace from human living areas. Chimneys are typically ...

, built in 1981, was 337 metres (1106 feet) tall, making it Germany's tallest chimney at the time. The power station was decommissioned on May 13, 2005, and the chimney demolished on Sunday, December 3, 2006, at 10:53 a.m. It was the tallest structure in

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

. Before its erection the 320.8 m tall 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 (also known as heat networks) is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralized location through a system of insulated pipes for residential and commercial heating requirements such as space heater, space heating and w ...

plant, "FWK Westerholt", has been in operation on this site since the spring of 2004. There are six

boiler A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, centra ...

s there to provide heat for the district heating network of the northern

Ruhr Area The Ruhr ( ; , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr Area, sometimes Ruhr District, Ruhr Region, or Ruhr Valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 1,160/km2 and a populati ...

. The Westerholt

coal mine Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

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 (today the city is a part of the city of

Herten Herten (; Westphalian: ''Hiätten'') is a town and a municipality in the district of Recklinghausen, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated in the industrial Ruhr Area, some west of Recklinghausen. Geography Town area Herten cov ...

and is named "Herten-Westerholt").

References

External links

Photos of Westerholt Power Station

* http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?b4758 * {{coord, 51, 36, 04, N, 7, 03, 50, E, region:DE-NW_type:landmark_source:dewiki, display=title 2005 disestablishments in Germany Towers completed in 1981 Buildings and structures demolished in 2006 Coal-fired power stations in Germany E.ON Buildings and structures in Gelsenkirchen Chimneys in Germany Economy of Gelsenkirchen

See also

References

External links