BERLIN: Germany 's Mahrom power plant has been restarted, becoming the country's first hard coal power plant to restart due to scarce gas supplies, plant sources said.

The general manager of Kraftwerk Mahrom, Armin Weber, told Xinhua that the station, which was previously in reserve mode, started operation since midday Sunday local time, with a capacity of about 270 megawatts.

Germany was the only industrialized country to phase out coal and nuclear power. But with the flow of gas from Russia through the strategically important Nord Stream 1 pipeline down to 20 per cent, the German government is considering halting the phase-out of nuclear power in the country and preparing further legislation to return lignite-fired power plants to the electricity market.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action recently announced that a gas savings law was being prepared to prevent "unnecessary generation of electricity from natural gas". The ministry said that the law "will enter into force when it becomes clear that there is a need for more rationalization of gas in electricity generation."

In preparation for the coming winter, the European Union's energy ministers agreed last Tuesday to voluntarily reduce gas consumption by 15 percent compared to the country's average consumption over the past five years, until the end of March 2023.

"We are doing everything we can to ensure that there is no shortage of gas. We have to save energy and find alternative sources," said German Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck.