The Boxberg R power station will be fuelled with local brown coal from an adjacent eastern German mining area and cost €1bn to build, reported Reuters.
Saxony state premier Stanislaw Tillich remarked that the brown coal provides for steady power generation and would complement renewables, such as solar and windpower.
"Our domestic brown coal is an important partner for renewable energy because it guarantees security of supply," Tillich said.
The power plant will bring total capacity at the Boxberg site to 2,575MW, enough to power nearly 4 million households in the region.
In 2011, Germany had enacted a law under which its remaining 12,696MW of nuclear capacity will be terminated over the next 10 years.
