Former HEAG substation
| Former HEAG substation | |
|---|---|
 View of the old switch house |
|
| Data | |
| place | Darmstadt |
| architect | Georg Markwort and Eugen Seibert |
| Client | HEAG |
| Construction year | 1926 |
| Coordinates | 49 ° 52 '31.1 " N , 8 ° 37' 24" E |
The former HEAG substation is a building in Darmstadt that was previously used as a switchgear and substation . Today it houses a community hall and a restaurant ( Altes Schalthaus ).
architecture
description
The facility, designed by architects Georg Markwort and Eugen Seibert, consists of two buildings, the large, two-story substation and the small, one-story hall immediately to the east of it. When planning the substation, Markwort and Seibert based themselves on examples of Expressionist architecture . Typical details of this style are the horizontal emphasis of the building by cornices and the narrow, high steel windows . The windows are crossed diagonally and close in a triangular manner at the top. The stepped gables are adorned with diagonal plaster strips . The striking structure consists of masonry . The dark steel windows and the red sandstone on the light plastered facade set color accents . There is a storey- high loggia on the west side of the substation . The loggia is supported by square pillars made of red sandstone that thicken upwards .
Rear view
Side view
Monument protection
Due to the expressionist-influenced architecture, the old building was preserved and placed under monument protection in 1988. It was originally planned to continue using this as a community center. The renovation and interior work began in 1998 by the sponsoring association. The project was completed in December 1999, and since then it has been used as a restaurant ( Altes Schalthaus ) and event hall. At the same time as the renovation, the main control room was also renewed.
history
Beginnings of the electricity supply in Darmstadt
The electrification of Darmstadt began at the end of the 19th century - the first power station, the Centralstation , was put into operation in Darmstadt city center in 1888 to supply the street lighting and, in particular, the new electric tram that was introduced in 1897 with electricity. After New York and Berlin , Darmstadt was under the leadership of the electrical engineering pioneer Erasmus Kittler, the third city in the world with a nationwide power supply. Due to the ever increasing power consumption in the expanding city, the facility was expanded from 1903 to 1906. With an output of around 2000 kW, it supplied numerous companies in the city with direct current.
However, the disadvantages of an urban direct current network quickly became apparent, since new companies mainly settled on the outskirts and were therefore often no longer within reach of the network. Due to the very high transmission losses of the direct current, a reliable power supply could no longer be ensured over a distance of only a few kilometers. As early as 1907, the city council approved a loan of 1.8 million marks for the construction of another power station. The plant on Dornheimer Weg (Elektrizitätswerk II), which was completed in 1909 and had an output of 4000 kW, had two steam turbines, each with a direct current and a three-phase generator. The main customers of the plant were the railway facilities in the immediate vicinity. The city's low-voltage network was also fed by the second power station, which meant that the old central station was gradually reduced. It served as a load distributor until 1976 , before a cultural center moved into the former machine hall in 1999 after a long period of vacancy.
Foundation and expansion of HEAG
On April 15, 1912, the city of Darmstadt, the Süddeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft , the province of Starkenburg , the industrialist Hugo Stinnes and the later director of Stinnes AG, Walter Bucerius, founded HEAG (Hessische Eisenbahn-Aktiengesellschaft) as shareholders . In addition to the operation of the two tram networks in Darmstadt - the electric and the steam tram - as a main task, the company also pushed ahead with the expansion of the city's electricity network. It took over the two power plants in the city and the surrounding area ( Starkenburg region ), as more and more communities ceded their local direct current generation to the HEAG network.
In addition to an ever-expanding medium and low voltage network (750 km in 1919), some connections with neighboring supply companies were also established. From 1915 the HEAG network was connected to the Rheinau power station in Mannheim via a 20 kV line to Heppenheim .
Two years later, in 1917, at the instigation of the Berlin Electricity Authority, HEAG had to conclude an electricity supply contract with the lignite power station of the Gustav union in Dettingen am Main . By purchasing the energy generated in the Dettingen power station, lignite mining in the Lower Main region should be kept economical. In order to transmit the electricity from the power plant to Darmstadt, a single-circuit 20-kV overhead line was built, which connected the power plant with Electricity Plant II on Dornheimer Weg. This line was put into operation in June 1918.
Establishment of the interconnected network
Construction of the switch house
From 1924 the direct current network in Darmstadt was gradually converted to alternating current, which is why direct current generation in Electricity II was discontinued. On the site of the old plant, HEAG built a 50/20 kV transformer station to feed the line from Dettingen. The building planned by the architects Georg Markwort and Eugen Seibert was completed in October 1926. With the commissioning of the two converters, which had an output of 10,000 kVA, the overhead line was finally converted from 20 to 50 kV.
Construction of the overhead line
For the connection of the substation, in addition to the existing line to Dettingen, a new line connection was built in order to couple the Darmstadt local network of HEAG with the newly emerging transmission network of RWE at the same time. In addition to the in-house generation in the Dettingen power plant, this could be used to obtain additional electrical energy, but also to feed it in if necessary.
The new overhead line led from the switchgear of the Dettinger power plant with one circuit to the substation on Dornheimer Weg, the second circuit led from Dettingen to the Kelsterbach substation of the RWE southwest of Frankfurt am Main . In addition, a circuit led from the Kelsterbach substation to the substation on Dornheimer Weg. When it was commissioned in 1927, the circuits were still operated at 50 kV, but both masts and insulators along the route were already designed for the higher voltage level of 100 kV.
The plant was primarily supplied via the direct line to Dettingen. The new line via Kelsterbach served mainly as a reserve, but in addition to the now possible transmission of larger amounts of electricity, it also established a joint operation between HEAG and neighboring energy supply companies: via the Kelsterbach substation with RWE and the Main power plants, via the substation at the Dettingen power plant with PreußenElektra and the Bayernwerk , which has been operating a 100 kV line network since 1924.
Another connection on the 100 kV level was to lead from Dornheimer Weg to the Mannheim-Rheinau substation in order to establish a network operation with the Badenwerk on the high voltage level. This line was completed in 1926 to Heppenheim , the continuation to Mannheim was not established until after the Second World War.
Due to the now existing connections to the much more effective large power plants and networks of the surrounding energy supply companies, HEAG finally shut down Electricity Works II in 1931. A year later, the conversion from direct to alternating current in the supply area was completed.
Dettingen power plant
110 kV line mast
Former junction mast to the substation on Dornheimer Weg
time of the nationalsocialism
As a measure taken by the National Socialists in 1935, it was decided to introduce a uniform voltage of 110 kV across the entire German network. In November 1935, a new open-air switchgear was therefore completed in the southern part of the HEAG site on Dornheimer Weg, which transformed between the 110 and 20 kV level. After only about 10 years of operation, the system in the switch house was shut down again.
By 1940, two further 110 kV substations were put into operation in the supply area; these were located at the Hirschhorn power plant built in 1933 and in Erbach . There were connections via the medium-voltage network to other areas of the HEAG network area, including Darmstadt. In the Second World War , these connections were of considerable importance, as the closed power station II was damaged in the course of the bombing of the railway systems on September 13, 1944. Since the substation on Dornheimer Weg was still working, electricity was now drawn from the Hirschhorn power plant, which enabled Darmstadt to maintain the electricity supply via the Erbach substation.
New building
The old building was operated as a substation in addition to the open-air system in the southern part of the plant until 1965, before a new 110-kV open-air switchgear was built. In 1972 the main control room of the HEAG network went into operation on the site, replacing the four previous regional network control centers. When it was commissioned, it was considered one of the most modern systems in Germany. In addition, two further substations at the 110 kV level went into operation in the Darmstadt city area in 1964 and 1971.
In addition to the construction of new substations, new line connections were also created, for example from Dornheimer Weg to the Urberach substation, which was set up in the 1950s in an initial expansion stage on the 110 kV level and in the 1970s by a 220 and 380 kV system was expanded. The old 50 kV line to Dettingen was therefore no longer needed and was therefore dismantled. A last line mast has been preserved southwest of Urberach on the L 3097.
The line built in 1926 with a connection to both the Dettingen power plant and the Kelsterbach substation was dismantled at the beginning of 2010 as part of restructuring at the Kelsterbach substation in connection with the expansion of the Weiterstadt industrial park. The Weiterstadt substation on the route has since been supplied via an underground cable branch of the line to Urberach.
A four-circuit 110 kV line leads to today's open-air switchgear, which branches off immediately to the west on the routes towards Pfungstadt / Heppenheim and Urberach / Darmstadt-Nord.
literature
- Günter Fries et al .: City of Darmstadt. (= Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany , cultural monuments in Hesse .) Vieweg, Braunschweig 1994, ISBN 3-528-06249-5 , p. 569.