On August 26, 2021, the court in Münster declared the development plan for the power plant, which has been supplying electricity since 2020, to be invalid.
It was already the second plan by the city of Datteln that did not stand up to legal scrutiny.
The 10th Senate of the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) had not allowed an appeal.
The appeal by the city of Datteln, on the other hand, was now successful at the Federal Administrative Court.
In 2009, the Higher Administrative Court overturned a development plan for the city of Datteln for the first time.
A farmer from the neighboring town of Waltrop prevailed with his lawsuit.
The top NRW administrative judges complained that the plan did not match the state development plan.
He envisaged a more remote area in the northeast of the city of Datteln as the location for a large power plant.
The then red-green state government then changed the state planning so that the building of the then owner Eon in the wrong place - about five kilometers away - was subsequently legal.
In the 2021 decision, the OVG saw a breach of the legal requirements in the selection of the location.
The Datteln 4 power plant of the operator Uniper can still be operated.
The basis is an approval from 2017. Legal proceedings against this approval are pending before the 8th Senate of the Higher Administrative Court.
The power plant, which is referred to as Datteln 4 in reference to the previous blocks that were shut down, was actually supposed to supply electricity much earlier.
Construction began in 2007, and the block was supposed to be started up as early as 2011. However, a series of omissions and breakdowns delayed commissioning.
Before launch, defects in the welds of the new boiler became apparent.
It is the last coal-fired power plant built in Germany and has an output of 1100 megawatts (Az.: BVerwG 4 BN 50.21).