Erkelenz (dpa/lnw) - Two weeks after the protest camp at the Garzweiler lignite mine was disconnected from the public power grid, two photovoltaic systems are now supposed to supply energy. A representative of the environmental organization Greenpeace said on Tuesday that the systems were assembled in a joint action with two local initiatives. "Electricity flows here with the first rays of the sun". One system was mounted on a roof, another on a wooden tower. Greenpeace provided the used solar panels.
The hamlet occupied by activists no longer draws electricity from the public grid after RWE disconnected the power supply during demolition work in the run-up to the opencast mine. Abandoned by its original inhabitants, around a hundred activists live in squats, tents and tree houses. They want to prevent the site from being excavated for the lignite underneath. Land and houses belong to the energy company RWE.
The village of Lützerath, which belongs to Erkelenz, is to be cleared before March. The Green-led economics ministries in the federal government and North Rhine-Westphalia have agreed with RWE on an early phase-out of coal in the Rhenish lignite area. Several, largely abandoned villages at the opencast mine are to be preserved, but Lützerath is to be excavated.
