Following a court decision allowing RWE to proceed with the expansion, police in riot gear moved in a day earlier, clearing barricades put up by the activists and arresting several.

Equipped with ladders, sledgehammers and power saws, police climbed the walls of one of the abandoned houses in the village as protesters in the building and on its roof chanted "people got the power" and "Luetzerath stays".

Activists said hundreds of protesters were still at the site.