Hermann Honnef

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Hermann Honnef (born July 19, 1878 on Grafenwerth , a Rhine island in Bad Honnef , † June 30, 1961 in Rheinbrohl ) was a German inventor and wind energy pioneer. He was a visionary of the use of wind power and is considered a pioneer of this form of energy use. His ideas included the combination of wind turbines and thus the compensation of fluctuations in output, intermediate storage through hydrogen production, the use of sea winds in offshore systems and the utilization of winds at great heights.

Life

Hermann Honnef began an apprenticeship at the age of 15 at Jacob Hilgers Brückenbauten in Rheinbrohl. At the age of 17 he became head of department in one of the company's offices. During this time he also attended an advanced training school to study mathematics, mechanics, statics and sales theory as well as Latin, French and English.

After the First World War he founded the Honnef works in Dinglingen near Lahr . With 500 skilled workers and 50 engineers, he built cranes, movable bridges and free-standing radio towers in Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Leipzig. In 1925 he worked on the construction of the central tower ("The Fat One") in the Königs Wusterhausen transmitter near Berlin. This tower can be found in the city arms of Königs Wusterhausen. In 1931 the Honnef-Werke went bankrupt and Honnef moved to Berlin. At meetings he promoted his vision of generating electricity with large wind power plants. Even abroad, newspapers wrote about it. In the summer of 1941, construction began on the wind power test field in Bötzow (Oberkrämer) on the Mathiasberg . Wind power plants with double rotors up to ten meters in diameter were tested on this test field. Later investigations showed that a double rotor only gives five percent more power, but at the same time requires twice the construction effort. The largest system on the test field had an output of 15 kW. With the end of the Second World War he had to give up the work.

Honnef was a member of the Freemasons Association . On July 16, 1952, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his services to the use of wind power for energy generation . In his honor, the Ing.-Honnef-Strasse in Glinde and the Hermann-Honnef-Strasse in Cuxhaven have recently been named after him.

Services

High altitude wind power plant

Honnef planned wind power plants in the 1930s. These should be built up to 500 m high and carry three counter-rotating wind rotors with a diameter of 160 meters. They should generate an output of 20 MW at 15 m / s wind speed . The plants were to be built so high that Honnef expected higher wind speeds. The counter-rotating rotors should generate a higher induction than with conventional generators due to the higher relative speed between rotor and stator. However, due to the tolerances to be observed with such large diameters, this idea could not be implemented. Today ring generators are built up to a diameter of seven meters, which is considered to be just about manageable.

Works

  • Wind power plants . Vieweg, Braunschweig 1932.
  • Wind power plants and their influence on the German economy . Pfotenhauer, Berlin 1932.
  • Conversion of the economy through technical progress . Verl. Der Dt. Windkraft-Ges., Berlin 1934.
  • High altitude wind power plants . Mally, Vienna 1939.
  • Honnef's carbon-free electricity generation . Honnef, Rheinbrohl.

literature

  • Wolfgang Altendorf: Hermann Honnef. His life . Altendorf, Freudenstadt 1977.
  • Wolfgang Altendorf: Use of wind power with a gearless turbine - the Honnef ring generator . Technological publications of the Altendorf Cultural Foundation Freudenstadt, 1993.
  • Wolfgang Altendorf: The Honnef wind power project . Freudenstadt, without a year.
  • Heiner Dörner: Expert opinion on the wind power plants according to Hermann Honnef . Central Office for Aerospace Documentation and Information, 1977.
  • Research at the DTMB. The estate of Hermann Honnef, pioneer of wind energy . German Museum of Technology Berlin 2, 2009, 16ff.
  • Matthias Heymann : The history of wind energy use 1890–1990 . Campus, Frankfurt 1995, ISBN 3-593-35278-8 .
  • Waldemar Thomas: HONNEF's coal-free electricity generation through natural forces of wind and water . Submission dated July 24, 1946 on behalf of Hermann Honnef to the mayor and all members of the Senate and the citizenship of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg. (Available in the library of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, magazine stand number 2003 B 158.)

Movies

  • The Honnef project . ZDF, January 31, 1978. Documentary play by Hans Georg Thiemt and Hans Dieter Schreeb

Patents

Hermann Honnef has applied for a number of patents .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Pfaffenzeller: Wind power in the "Third Reich": The dream of the Reich power tower. In: Der Spiegel . Der Spiegel GmbH & Co. KG, June 29, 2020, accessed on June 29, 2020 .
  2. ^ Search for "Hermann Honnef" in DEPATISnet .
personal data
SURNAME Honnef, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German inventor and wind energy pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Grafenwerth
DATE OF DEATH June 30, 1961
Place of death Rheinbrohl