Niederaussem Power Station is a lignite-fired power station in the Bergheim Niederaussem/Rhein Erft circle, owned by RWE. It consists of nine units, which were built between 1963 and 2003. It is the second-largest lignite coal power plant in operation in Germany, with a total output capacity of 3,864 MW and a net capacity of 3,396 MW.

In the autumn of 1960, the construction work for blocks A and B (150 MW) began. The location was selected because of the possibility of an extension. The supply of brown coal was ensured by seams on a north-south course (“Garzweiler”). Before blocks A and B first produced power, the construction work for the first 300-megawatt power station block location in Niederaussem began. That block went online in the summer 1965. Between 1968 and 1971 three further power plants with improved technology were developed.

With the building of the block brown coal power station with optimized equipment technology (BoA) a new chapter at the power station began; between 1997 and 2002 it was the most modern brown coal power station block of the world with a gross achievement of 1,012 megawatts (950 MW net) developed with far higher efficiency (43%) than the other plants (as low as 31%). RWE invested €1,200 million into the project. The new power station block building has a height of 172 meters and is the tallest industrial building in the world.

The stations cooling towers were also the tallest in the world at 200 meters but are now the second tallest to those at the Kalisindh Thermal Power Station. With these developments, Niederaussem became one of the largest and most modern coal-fired power stations in the world. The official opening of the new block took place in the summer of 2002. In the presence of Wolfgang Clement, the then North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister, and Gerhard Schroeder, the then Federal Chancellor, the new power station went onto the grid.

According to Wikipedia