structural development

Exciting insights into lignite mining and power generation

The ENO team is constantly confronted with the challenges of structural change in their daily work.

Our Structural Change Task Force is engaged in intensive dialogue with municipalities, companies and research institutions to develop ideas, concepts and projects for coping with the upcoming changes in the district of Görlitz and in the whole of Lusatia. Today, on a joint trip to the north of the district, we had the opportunity to personally experience the places we talk about almost every day.   

The manager of the Nochten opencast mine, Matthias Gellrich, drove with us 120 meters down the opencast mine site to the coal seam. Here we got an impressive feeling of the enormous dimensions of the technology used and of the work processes that take place around the clock. Following the extracted coal, it then went to the Boxberg power plant. Power plant manager Carsten Marschner explained to us the process of power generation in the plant and emphasized the currently great importance of coal-fired power generation for a stable energy supply in Lusatia. During a tour, we were able to take a look into the turbine room and from a height of 150 meters we got a perfect overview of the power plant, the opencast mining landscape and its surroundings.  

Some residents of this region feel the consequences of coal mining particularly intensely. Some places have already had to give way to opencast mining. Jörg Funda, mayor of the municipality of Schleife, explained this to us using Mühlrose as an example. By the end of 2024, this place will be completely relocated. In Altmühlrose, many of the approximately 40 houses have already been abandoned and some have already been demolished. Many residents have received new land and new houses a few kilometers away. They are now committed to making the new Mühlrose an attractive, livable and lovable place.

For us, this day brought many exciting impressions and insights through direct discussions with the makers on site. We thank LEAG for the opportunity to visit the mine and power plant and Matthias Gellrich, Carsten Marschner and Jörg Funda for the time they took for us. We thank Katrin and our boss for the great organization and for this eventful day.