Hamburg gas works
The Hamburger Gaswerke was an energy supply company of the city of Hamburg , which was independent from 1844 to 2003 and was then taken over by the E.ON Group in a majority stake .
history
The company was founded in 1844 under the name "Gas-Compagnie" and initially agreed a 30-year contract for the public gas supply of the city of Hamburg as a monopoly. In the same year, she built the first gas station on Grasbrook Island , which became the company's headquarters. The town gas obtained from hard coal was initially primarily used for street lighting. The first gas lamps were lit on October 4th . However, they only shone for two weeks until a storm surge destroyed the facility.
In 1846 a new gas works was built on Grasbrook by the British engineer William Lindley and it was enlarged again and again in the following years. In 1856, the first gas heating system in Hamburg was put into operation in the St. Katharinen church . In 1870 the pipeline network of the gas works was 240 kilometers and supplied 9,000 lanterns.
In 1878, the largest gas tank in Europe with a capacity of 50,000 m³ was built on Grasbrook . In 1890 a "Lantern Lighters Association" was founded.
In 1891 the city of Hamburg took over the management of the gas works on its own. In 1909 they built the giant Grasbrook gasometer for 200,000 m³ of gas, which was a new European record, but exploded a few weeks after it was put into operation. It was repaired and put back into service in 1911.
After the First World War, the gas works were converted into a GmbH in 1924 . The pipe network was now 1,095 kilometers.
In the bombing raids of World War II in 1943, all gas works except the one in Bergedorf were badly damaged. They were quickly repaired and were able to resume part of production after a short time. A third of the workers were prisoners of war from the east.
1950–1953 the factory on Grasbrook was completely renewed. It then met 60% of the total demand from Hamburg. The network was also expanded into the surrounding area. From 1964 the gradual conversion to natural gas took place . When the coking plant was badly damaged after the great storm surge in 1976 , the plant on Grasbrook was shut down and demolished. In 1981 the last gas lamps in Hamburg were removed. The entire supply area was now only supplied with natural gas.
After the reunification , the supply of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was added in 1991 , for which the company was renamed HGW HanseGas GmbH .
In 2003 there was a merger with Schleswag, which was founded in 1929, and a majority takeover by the E.ON Group under the new company name E.ON Hanse AG . The company headquarters was relocated to Quickborn .
On September 22, 2013, a referendum decided to buy back the energy networks. On January 1, 2018, the city bought back the Hamburg gas network. In this context, the renaming took place Hamburg Netz GmbH for the gas network Hamburg GmbH .
literature
- Kurt Grobecker, Wilhelm Hartung: One and a half centuries of HeinGas . Hamburg 1994
- Manfred Asendorf: History of the Hamburg gas works , H. Christians, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 9783767210707
- Alfred Pens: The historical and economic development of the Hamburger Gaswerke GmbH , 4 volumes with attachments, machine writing, Hamburg 1937/38.
Remarks
- ↑ Including by James Godfrey Booth and the English engineers James Malam and William Crosskill
- ↑ The gas heating in the St. Catharine Church in Hamburg , in: Journal for gas lighting and related types of lighting , 1st year, Munich 1858, pp. 55 ff digitalisat .
- ↑ Referendum on energy networks - Hamburg interior authority - FHH. Accessed December 1, 2018 .
- ↑ Hamburg Netz becomes Gasnetz Hamburg. Accessed December 1, 2018 .