The coal-fired combined heat and power plant in Mainz is expected to cost about $2 billion and has a contracted completion date of 2013.

Siemens was contracted to cover planning, supply, erection and commissioning of the main components for this power plant and holds about half of the consortium value.

The hard-coal-fired plant is expected to have a capacity of more than 800 megawatts and will be built at the existing KMW power plant site in Mainz.

"Thanks to the advanced technology the power plant will attain a very high efficiency of 46 percent and will be one of Europe's most modern plants," said Michael Suess, chief executive officer of the Siemens Energy Division Fossil Power Generation.

The plant will also produce about 200 megawatts of district heat for as many as 40,000 households and approximately 30 megawatts of process steam for industrial plants in Mainz.

"We will thus achieve an optimum fuel efficiency of 60 percent," Suess said.

The power plant licensing phase is already under way, and construction is scheduled to commence late-2008 or early-2009.

"The site is this particularly suitable for the erection of a CHP plant. It will make a key contribution toward reliable and cost-effective power supply in the Mainz-Wiesbaden region," Olaf Thun, project manager at KMW, said.