King Harald of Norway opened Statkraft's first gas power plant in Germany.

The opening represents a milestone for Statkraft in several ways. The power plant is the Statkraft’s first power plant on the continent, as well as the company’s first power plant to use natural gas as an energy source.

“The opening of the gas power plant at Knapsack is an important milestone for Statkraft. Having our own production capacity on the continent will reinforce our power trading activities and give us a solid footing in a power market that is becoming increasingly deregulated,” said  Statkraft's President and CEO Bård Mikkelsen.

 Largest and first of the gas power plants 
Knapsack Power Plant is equipped with two gas turbines and a steam turbine that provide a combined installed capacity of 800 MW. At full capacity the power plant is capable of producing 6 TWh of electrical power each year – enough to cover the power consumption of 1.2 million German homes. This corresponds to five percent of total power consumption in Norway.

Construction work started in the summer of 2005, and it has taken around 1.5 million working hours to complete the power plant. The plant has been constructed using the best available technology within the areas of the environment, safety and energy efficiency. The power plant cost around EUR 400 million.

Knapsack Power Plant is the first of the two gas power plants being built by Statkraft in Germany to be completed. A gas power plant with a capacity of 400 MW is being constructed at Herdecke near Dortmund. Statkraft jointly owns the power plant together with the German company Mark E. Statkraft also has a 50-percent shareholding in Naturkraft, who is building a 418 MW gas power plant at Kårstø in Norway. New gas power plants currently being built in Germany will primarily replace coal power, which causes much more pollution. Gas power plants constructed using the best available current technology emit around 50 percent less CO2 than coal-fired power plants.