At full capacity Heyden burns 265 tonnes of coal every hour, and is seldom not running as it supplies most of the daily base electricity demand.
Between January and February 2021 the power plant had to be restarted six times, even though it had been officially shut down because of the Energiewende.
"[2] From the end of August 2022, the hard-coal-fired power plant will go from mere grid reserve back into continuous operation in order to save natural gas.
[3] Heyden has been fitted with a flue-gas desulfurization plant, and cleans 99% of the dust from its emissions and 90% of the sulphur but none of the carbon dioxide greenhouse gas.
Heyden outputs 2700 tonnes of steam per hour, has 32 pulverised coal burners, and its chimney is 225 metres high.