The investigation presented deals with the improvement of rite efficiency in conventional brown-coal-fired unit plants. In the thermic process of drying with waste heat, investigated here, the lignite in the known beater wheel mils is dried with the whole waste heat after the economizer After rile mill, the coal dust is removed from the flue gas enriched with exhaust vapours and is led to the furnace. The cleaned flue gas streams directly into the atmosphere. As the flue gas is used for the drying of coal, the flue-gas-heated air preheater generally used up to now, can be dispensed with and an air preheater, heated with bled steam can be employed instead The rise in bled steam reduces the energy loss during condensation and thereby increases tile total efficiency The improvement of the net efficiency reaches 2.0% points. The investigation was carried out for an existing lignite. The retrofitting is feasible from a thermic point of view.