When the Jänschwalde power plant first rose from the fields of eastern Germany in the late 1970s, it must have looked like a cathedral to coal. Six cooling towers — each taller than a downtown high-rise — billowed plumes of steam visible for miles, a clear symbol of the socialist state’s industrial ambitions. Decades later, the towers still dominate the horizon, and the plant remains enough of an emblem that it gets a mention on the local tourism website.

The communist-era complex, little changed in 40 years, is so iconic that in March, the Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation added Jänschwalde to its register of protected sites — rare for an active coal-fired station. The office described the plant as “an important element of the industrial culture of Lusatia,” a region that historically also included parts of Poland. Jänschwalde “has shaped the region for decades,” it noted, “visually and in terms of jobs and therefore the working lives of many people.”

The designation presents a problem for operator LEAG, which is planning to turn Jänschwalde into a less polluting plant powered by natural gas. The company aims to close the next of the plant’s four still-active blocks this year, and the entire facility by 2028. The future of Jänschwalde’s 900 employees is in doubt if it can’t be successfully converted to gas — a transition LEAG now fears will be impossible given the new restrictions on listed buildings.

“We want a future after coal,” said Toralf Smith, chairman of the works council at LEAG’s power station division. “This decision is highly unfortunate, and we hope that it doesn’t block possible investments.”

Like many European countries, Germany is working toward net-zero goals — it’s shooting for climate neutrality by 2045 — and trailing its own targets. The country is banking on massive growth in renewables and gas after phasing out nuclear generation two years ago, and by law it must retire all coal-fueled plants by 2038.

But Germany’s heritage authorities have long been a thorn in the energy industry’s side. By the end of 2021, 1 gigawatt’s worth of onshore wind projects — enough to power up to 1 million homes — had been held up by preservation orders, a backlog that only eased after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered an energy crisis and prompted Germany to declare renewables in the public interest.

One of those projects was a seven-turbine wind farm in Brandenburg, blocked in June 2022 by a protection order at a dilapidated manor house nearby. Developer WPD Onshore GmbH, which initially signed contracts back in 2015, went to court over the designation. In March it received final approval to proceed with the wind farm, but turbine technology has changed enough in the intervening years that the company must now file updated plans.

Development Delays

The Brandenburg heritage office didn’t just wield authority over the Jänschwalde plant; in March it also issued conservation orders for a LEAG-operated lignite-briquette factory in nearby Spremberg, and for an administrative building and an industrial site the size of 168 soccer fields. Such sweeping restrictions could increase the hurdles for the redevelopment of both sites and the surrounding lands.

The heritage office says its aim is not to blacklist energy projects, but to make sure they’re developed “in a way that is appropriate for listed buildings,” the company said in a statement. Its view is that the Jänschwalde coal plant conversion will be able to proceed.

LEAG, a unit of Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s EPH group, has lodged an appeal on Jänschwalde that is still pending, and met state officials for talks at the end of May. “It was agreed that the ongoing operation of the affected facilities would not be affected by the preservation order,” said LEAG spokesman Steffen Herrmann. What’s less clear is whether equipment upgrades would be impacted by the order during a shift to gas-fired generation.

Even if the conversion goes ahead, the preservation order will likely slow it down. “Another player has to be involved in the approval process, which can naturally affect the duration of the procedure,” said Katrin Andrä, co-head of energy and infrastructure at law firm Noerr LLP, who is not involved in the Jänschwalde project.

Another German power station shows how such delays might play out. In 2022, authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia decided on a preservation order for the Frimmersdorf plant, formerly a coal-fueled facility held by RWE AG. Although only parts of the decommissioned plant were covered by the order, it still took more than two years of stakeholder back-and-forth to convert the site into a digital and business innovation hub.

In Spremberg, there’s already anger that the historical-monument designation may stand in the way of redevelopment that could benefit the local economy. “Heritage protection is faster and more successful than the ‘net zero valley,’” Spremberg Mayor Christine Herntier wrote in a social media post, essentially saying it was easier to protect buildings than move ahead with the region’s plans for a clean energy hub to help it reach climate neutrality. “This decision has fatal consequences; it must be reversed.”

Heritage authorities haven’t been the only foil to Germany’s energy goals. A 20-gigawatt gas-expansion plan is facing pushback from the European Commission, which expressed doubts about permitting state aid for what is effectively a fossil-fuel project. Only a fraction of the plan’s capacity is set to be tendered by year’s end.

The regional distribution of power-plant conversions is also dampening hopes for the conversion of the Jänschwalde site. Two-thirds of the government-issued requests to develop natural gas plants are for development in Germany’s industrial south, according to Economy Minister Katherina Reiche.

“We reject the idea to favor the south and also demand a fair chance,” works council chairman Smith at LEAG said. The additional obstacles presented by the protection order “compound our dissatisfaction with the whole transformation process.”