AEK energy

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AEK Energie AG
legal form Corporation
founding 1894
Seat Solothurn , Switzerland
management Walter Wirth
( CEO )
Pirmin Bischof
( Chairman of the Board )
Number of employees 233 (2014)
sales 143 million CHF (2014)
Branch power supply
Website www.aek.ch

The AEK Energie AG , based in Solothurn is a Swiss power company . It was founded in 1894 as a company for the Aare and Emmen canals and in 1994, on the occasion of its 100th birthday, was renamed AEK Energie AG . The company employs 233 people and in 2014 generated consolidated sales of 143 million Swiss francs.

As the largest electricity supplier on the southern foot of the Jura , AEK Energie supplies around 40,000 households, industrial and commercial enterprises with a total of 1,392  GWh of electricity per year in the Solothurn and Oensingen region . Most of this is obtained from Alpiq and BKW .

History of origin

The creation of the AEK is closely related to the introduction of the electricity supply in the Solothurn region. On August 10, 1891, the groundbreaking ceremony for the first major power plant in the canton of Solothurn , the Luterbach hydropower plant . It was supposed to be powered by the so-called Aare - Emmen - Canal , a canal that was dug parallel to the Aare from the already existing Emme Canal to the Wilihof Bridge. It was fed on the one hand by the Aare itself and on the other hand by the Emme Canal. The construction of the power plant was completed in 1893, and it was fully commissioned in 1894, the year in which the owner AEK was founded, which was founded to operate it.

The power plant's six turbines each developed 140 hp , which resulted in a total output of 840 hp. The plant initially had three customers for the energy generated:

  • an aluminum factory that was attached to the power plant,
  • The Wilihof cement factory (today Vigier-Zement), which is not far away, was driven by a wire cable transmission (visible from the outside) from one of the turbines,
  • the Derendingen worsted spinning mill located further away , which was the only one to be supplied with electricity (and not by mechanical drive) via an overhead line .

The power plant was decommissioned in 1968 in connection with the commissioning of the much more powerful Aare power plant in Flumenthal. Today nothing can be seen of the Aare-Emmen Canal, but the turbine building next to the Wilihof Bridge still exists (compare also Jura water correction ).

The majority of AEK, founded with the support of Zurich financial circles, was transferred to a German company in 1899. In 1916, BKW bought back most of the shares from the Germans. Today, the majority of the shares are owned by Alpiq , BKW as well as the canton of Solothurn and the municipalities of the Solothurn region and regional industry.

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