Cologne-Südstadt heating plant
| Heating plant south (city) | |||
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| Coordinates | 50 ° 55 '6 " N , 6 ° 57' 28" E | ||
| country | Germany | ||
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| fuel | natural gas | ||
| power | 80 MW ( thermal ) | ||
| owner | RheinEnergie | ||
| operator | RheinEnergie | ||
| Start of operations | October 1, 1891 | ||
| boiler | Combined gas and steam power plant | ||
| Website | www.rheinenergie.com | ||
| was standing | 2018 | ||
The Cologne-Südstadt heating plant (or in short: Heizwerk Süd (city) ) is a historic, but still active district heating plant in the southern Neustadt of Cologne . The drinking water supply for downtown Cologne is also located on the site. The heating plant also generated electricity until the end of 2017.
history
After the medieval city wall and the ramparts in front of it were demolished in 1880, the areas in front of the inner belt of fortifications had to be built on in a sensible way. An entire building block, bounded by the streets Zugweg, Bonner Wall and Ohmstraße, was earmarked for the construction of new municipal utilities. The pump house of the Severin I waterworks was first built in 1883/84. Six years later, in 1890/91, the power station (Zentrale 1) followed. Various boiler houses followed. In 1901 the complex was expanded to include the Severin II pumping station, which was supplemented with an underground drinking water reservoir (20,000 cubic meters ). All buildings were erected between 1883 and 1909.
The executive architect was u. a. Heinrich Deutz (* 1840 in Cologne; † 1907 there). With its representative yellow brick façade, the architectural style was based on the German Renaissance and Classicism . The later buildings, each made of red brick, followed other, older styles. The second power station (Zentrale 2), built between 1898 and 1900, was looking for Romanesque forms. In elaborate neo-Gothic forms (see brick Gothic ), which were partially reconstructed in the 1970s, the power station with the alternators was built. The site was built and operated by the " Gas, Elektrizitäts- und Wasserwerke Köln AG (GEW) ".
First use
The first electricity from the newly built power plant was delivered to the Volksgarten in Cologne on September 12, 1891 and illuminated the 21st German Jurists' Day held there . However, regular operations only began three weeks later on October 1, 1891.
Essentially, the old town and the rings were supplied first. The public lighting was partly fed from it, as were craftsmen and factories that operated smaller motors with the electricity supplied. Some households were also supplied with electricity, which operated their lamps with it. A connection cost around 250 marks a year (around a quarter of the average annual wage at the time), and the kilowatt hour cost 80 pfennigs. At the time, the plant was the first large AC power plant in Germany with a capacity of around 1.2 megawatts .
Soon this initial total output was no longer sufficient, as the development and lighting of the new city districts and the increasing electrification in trade and industry required more and more electricity. Further generators, now with the more effective alternating current , were installed by the Ehrenfeld company Helios . In October 1901, the first electric tram also went into operation in Cologne. Just two years later, it alone consumed 6,900 MW, around 62 percent of the alternating current produced in the southern heating (power) plant.
Further expansions and modifications were able to deliver around 26,400 MW of electricity to 6,078 customers from business and private households by 1909. Here, too, the transport companies were the largest customer (49%). In 1926 the obsolete AC system was shut down and replaced.
Effects of war
After the last bombardment on March 2, 1945, Cologne remained without electricity for eleven days. Many of the complex's buildings were damaged in the attack. Finally, boiler VII was put back into operation via a diesel generator from the military government. Four weeks later, on March 30, 1945, a six-kilovolt cable from the Pius substation in the Ehrenfeld district to the Zugweg was switched through. In November 1945, a generator from the power plant could be used for a short time. However, this had to cease operations again due to the lack of oil and coal. Until the city's supply was fully operational, smaller generators were used in a decentralized manner and electricity was drawn from outside Cologne. It was not until 1949 that both generators in the power plant went back online.
The work today
In 1963/64 the outdated power plant was modernized, and now the southern heating plant also supplied district heating. In October 1966, WDR became one of the first major customers. In 1994 there were further modifications to a modern combined heat and power plant with a gas turbine. The gas and steam turbine system (CCGT) has three main components: A gas turbine set (gas turbine with generator); a waste heat steam generator with additional firing and a steam turbine set (steam turbine with generator).
By the end of 2016, the southern heating (power) plant with state -of-the- art combined heat and power generation based on natural gas will provide an annual electricity output of approx. 100,000 MW. Due to the commissioning of the new combined cycle plant “Niehl 3” at the Cologne-Niehl thermal power station , which was built in 1977, electricity generation was stopped. Since then, the southern heating plant has been producing around 80 MW of district heating for the inner city in winter alone as a reserve heating plant.
On April 1, 2005, the owner of the area, the Gas-, Elektrizitäts- und Wasserwerke Köln AG (GEW), renamed Rheinenergie AG .
architecture
The following objects, described in detail, are architectural monuments within the meaning of Section 2, Paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Monument Protection Act . These are protected under number 726 since July 6, 1981.
Pump house Severin I (building 50)
Today the house is used as an operating and laboratory building. From the outside, two floors are indicated in the exterior, but the interior was later redistributed with three floors. The central axis is designed as a protruding risalit in three-window width with higher storeys. The yellow brick facade is divided into window sills, cornices and wall pillar caps with red Eifel sandstone . The building rests on a basalt plinth . In addition there is stone plastic (two Putten , a crest with a crest -keeping) is in the field of the arc Risalitgiebels and above the entrance a lion's head. Due to bomb damage in World War II, the original roof, including the building decoration that crowned the façades, was lost.
Boiler house (building 20)
This is a side wing connected at an obtuse angle to the Severin I waterworks with a rear extension from 1908. The symmetrical, six-axis elongated building is formed in the central axis by a three-axis risalit with the central axis again emphasized in height (large window with partly original Glazing). Under the window, in raised Greek letters, you can find : “Kineitai Kai Pei Ta anta” (in German: It is moved and everything flows). The yellow brick facades have red sandstone structures (continuous sills, keystone, cornice). The basalt base and war damage are similar to those of building 50. In the interior, the walls are covered with green wall tiles below, subdivided with red tiles. The staircase (metal steps with perforated metal joints) in the middle, which leads to the basement, as well as that to the gallery, is separated by a railing with geometric Art Nouveau (1908). The basement has a capped ceiling supported by stone pillars .
In the risalit there is a gallery protruding into the room with a balustrade, supported by three cast iron columns. These have with palmettes decorated capitals with overlying consoles. On the gallery there are three more, but simpler, cast iron columns.
The rear extension, built around 1902, has a brick facade with horizontal basalt stone structures, which seek echoes of Romanesque and Gothic. The whole thing is limited at the top by a glazing which rises like an attic with triplet windows. The renewed gable roof (axially symmetrical decorative gable ) has an elevated ridge with skylight strips on both sides.
Engine house (building 10)
The elongated, built in 1900 construction, also has a renovated gable roof, which once even skylights and dormers had. In the middle there are transept-like porches. One is flanked by round towers on the street side. In the north-west there is a large round stair tower with a dwarf gallery , dormer windows and a crowning lantern. On the stepped portal -like gable front in the north there is a risalit-like porch, designed like a loggia with a crowning balcony and a stone lion on the corner post. The original door (two-winged), built in light sandstone, has a richly subdivided round arched skylight. The exterior structure with arched windows and parapet windows sits on red brick facades, also with basalt structures and echoes of the Romanesque. Inside there is a mosaic floor in the forecourt and ribbed vaults with heads as consoles. The stair tower has three stacked stair systems from different decades.
Storage Shed (Building 71)
This is an outbuilding built in 1903 on Bonner Wall. A low, elongated, narrow building with a pent roof built on the wall has a red brick facade, which is interrupted by three wooden gates and three pairs of windows in between. I.a. electricity meters are stored here .
Kesselhaus Severin II (Building 70)
The free-standing long building, built in 1901, also located on the Bonn Wall, with a low porch facing the street, was previously flanked by two chimneys. Only the square base reminds of this. However, a base is used by a modern slim metal chimney. There is a gable roof with a raised ridge, which houses skylight strips on both sides. The red brick facades (Romanesque, Gothic), based on basalt plinths, are structured with dark red, glazed clinker bricks. The north-western part of the inner courtyard has been changed over the years by office buildings. The four originally preserved, double-leaf metal gates can be found on the north side. The inside of the building houses a large hall with an open roof structure. The yellow clinker walls are patterned with red clinker.
Pump house Severin II (building 60)
A free-standing, elongated building with a hipped roof and polygonal corner design. The tower tops from the years 1900–1901 are no longer available today. In the central axis of the northern front there is a double-winged door and a stepped gable, from what was once more. The building is divided into three floors, including the converted attic. Of the pointed arched windows in each of the five building axes, each with five lancet windows (with horizontal, orange-colored, glazed and metal clover-leaf strips), three have been preserved on the north front and the middle one on the south. On the lower wall parts of the main floor, which is accessible from the edge, there are green tiles with red stripes. It is still used today as a pump hall.
Entrance house (building 62)
The building on Ohmstrasse was erected in 1901, as evidenced by an inscription on the weather vane . The date of the restoration in 1981 is also found in this inscription. This house is a free-standing building with a steep hipped roof, integrated into an enclosure. Towards the company premises, it was designed like a city gate with a stepped portal and flanking corner towers. In the latter there are three coupled lancet windows. In addition to the basalt plinth and cornice, there are individual basalt stones on the window and door frames. In the interior, a ribbed vault hovers over blue wall tiles, structured by brown tiles.
Chimneys (Buildings 21 and 22)
These two structures were built in 1905, 75 meters high, industrial chimneys on a round floor plan. Ornaments in the brick factory.
enclosure
The brick wall around the entire area with gothic blind arches was built around 1900. Founded or capped with basalt above and below. It is sometimes only made as a wrought iron fence. On the Bonn Wall with integrated water fountain motif and in the Zugweg area with the motif of the Neptune fork .
The evaluation as a monument resulted from the following considerations: The buildings represent a larger ensemble of technical buildings from the years shortly before and after the turn of the century. Here the developmental status of a centralized water and electricity supply is shown. The relatively complete unit forms a strongly perceptible accent of the southern New Town of Cologne today. It documents a representative willingness to design in the course of the city's expansion. From an art-historical point of view, the buildings show the change of stylistic features of earlier epochs (classicism to Renaissance, Romanesque and finally Gothic).
There is an above-ground gas storage facility in the area .
Others
The site is not open to the public. However, there is admission to the site on special occasions, such as the “Cologne Theater Night” or the “Night of Technology” or the Open Monument Day . On September 15, 2018, there was an opening under the heading “Energy Walk” for 21 Instagrammers , who could find particularly rare photo opportunities there.
There have been three externally looked after bee colonies on the site since 2017. A wild meadow was sown for this purpose.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Official blog entry of the operator Rheinenergie
- ↑ Martin Boldt: Old Rhein-Energie-Kraftwerk When the people of Cologne saw the light 125 years ago . In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger . October 5, 2016, p. 2.
- ↑ Description of the monument . In: bilderbuch-koeln.de
- ↑ Claudia Welkisch: blog entry . In: Rheinenergie. October 13, 2018.
- ↑ Blog entry Rheinenergie from June 3, 2017.