Barberine-Vernayaz power station
| Barberine-Vernayaz power station | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 Red: SBB systems, blue: Electricité d'Emosson systems , green: Nant de Drance pumped storage power plant , gray: other systems |
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| location | |||
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| Coordinates | 564491 / 103901 | ||
| country |
 Switzerland
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| Waters | Barberine , Nant de Drance , Trient , Eau Noire , Triège | ||
| Data | |||
| Type | Pumped storage power plant system | ||
| Primary energy | water | ||
| power |
Châtelard : 107 MW Vernayaz : 92 MW Trento: 1 MW Total: 193 MW Châtelard pump output : 30 MW |
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| owner | SBB | ||
| Project start | 1918 | ||
| Start of operations | Châtelard: 1923 Vernayaz: 1928 Trento: 1929 |
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| turbine | Châtelard: 5 Peltonn Vernayaz: 3 Pelton Trento: 2 Pelton Total: 9 |
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| Energy fed in per year | Châtelard: 160 GWh Vernayaz: 240 GWh Trento: 2 GWh Total: 402 GWh |
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| was standing | 2018 | ||
The power plant Barberine Vernayaz is a two-stage power plant of the SBB to generate 16.7 Hz traction power in Lower Valais in Switzerland , the water from the Lac d'Emosson concerns.
history
As early as 1917, the SBB acquired the concession for the use of the water power of the Barberine , Nant de Drance , Trient , Eau Noire and Triège - all bodies of water in the Vallée du Trient and its side valleys.
In the electrification program of 1918, the two-stage Barberine-Vernayaz power plant was intended to supply the railway lines in western Switzerland . In a first step, only the upper stage, the Châtelard-Barberine power plant , was to be built, which also included the Lac de Barberine top storage facility with a capacity of 39 million m³ . The energy generated should be sufficient for the electrical operation of the Brig – Lausanne – Geneva and Lausanne – Vallorbe lines. In May 1919, the required for this loan was 37.5 million francs - Credit granted by the Board of Directors of SBB.
With the program for accelerated electrification of the main lines of the SBB approved in 1923, the second stage of the facility with the Vernayaz power station became necessary. Even during the implementation of the program, it became clear that additional energy would be necessary especially for the routes in Central and Eastern Switzerland. That is why the Trient auxiliary power plant was built, which went into operation in 1929 and connected the power plant group in western Switzerland with that of the Gotthard. This was done with a 132 kV high voltage line that led to Rupperswil and there connected to the 66 kV line from the Gotthard . The Rupperswil-Auenstein power plant was not built until 1941, but that was already planned at that time, which is why this point was chosen to link the two power plant groups. The power plant group was expanded as follows in 1928:
| Headquarters | power | Turbines | Flow
amount |
Generated energy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barberine | 36 MW | 4th | 8 m³ / s | 60 GWh |
| Vernayaz | 85 MW | 5 | 8 m³ / s | 170 GWh |
| Trent | 2 MW | 2 | 3.2 m³ / s | |
| Total | 123 MW | 10 | 230 GWh |
Additional energy requirements of the railways after the Second World War required the expansion of the power station. In 1950 the upper reaches of the Triège was taken and led into the Lac de Barberine with a 3.8 km long tunnel. Furthermore, from 1951 the dam was built for the Lac du Vieux Emosson , a reservoir above the Lac de Barberine, which dammed the Nant de Drance and was able to store the energy for the winter. The dam was completed in 1955. The proposed work to utilize the height difference between the two reservoirs was not implemented. This task will only come to the Nant de Drance pumped storage power plant to be opened in 2019 .
Lac d'Emosson
In 1954, Electricité d'Emosson SA (ESA) was founded with the aim of building the much larger Lac d'Emosson. The new reservoir uses the same valley as Lac de Barberine with a higher dam wall further up the valley, so that the existing Barberine dam is flooded. Before the project could be implemented, the national border had to be moved so that the dam wall came to rest entirely on Swiss soil.
The SBB are not involved in ESA, the cooperation between the two companies is set out in a contract dated June 1961. In order for the SBB to agree to the new project, the new company had to agree to continue providing the SBB with the water that would have been available in the Lac de Barberine, which was no longer usable. SBB also had the planned Emosson dam increased by five meters in order to gain an additional 16 million m³ of storage volume. In return, they paid 10% of the cost of the dam.
The Lac d'Emosson was built in the years 1963–1974. The production of the auxiliary power station Trento and the power station Vernayaz declined in summer because water was taken from the upper reaches of the Trento for the new Châtelard-Vallorcine headquarters of ESA and tributaries of the Eau Noire were fed to the new reservoir.
With the construction of the new reservoir, SBB had to adapt its power plant for 130 million francs as follows:
- the pressure line of the Châtelard-Barberine power station had to be replaced because it would not have withstood the pressure of the higher dammed Lac d'Emosson. It was replaced by a pressure shaft, while at the same time the maximum flow rate was doubled from 8 to 16 m³ / s.
- because the inlet tunnel of the Vernayaz power plant was not dimensioned for the increased flow, a 200,000 m³ compensation basin had to be created at the Châtelard-Barberine headquarters
- the Châtelard-Barberine power plant was expanded into a pumped storage power plant , which uses the newly created equalization basin as a lower basin. The pump turbine was installed in the newly built Châtelard-Barberine II headquarters, and the existing headquarters became Châtelard-Barberine I
- because the equalization basin is deeper than the existing inlet tunnel to the Vernayaz power plant, two small pumps had to be installed to lift the turbinated water from the two Châtelard-Barberine centers into the inlet tunnel.
technology
The two-stage power plant consists of the Châtelard-Barberine and Vernayaz centers. Châtelard-Barberine can process a maximum of 16 m³ / s . The water is drawn from Lac d'Emosson and discharged into the equalization basin at Le Châtelard . From the compensation basin it can either be pumped back into the reservoir or it can be pumped into the inlet tunnel to the compensation basin at Les Marécottes by two small pumps .
This inlet tunnel begins at the water intake of the Eau Noire , which is about 80 m on the valley side of the national border. It also absorbs the water from the upper reaches of the Trento after it has been processed by a secondary power station. On the way from the Châtelard-Barberine headquarters to the Les Marécottes equalization basin, the water from the lower reaches of the Triège is absorbed at Le Trétien.
A horizontal pressure tunnel leads from the Les Marécottes compensation basin to the surge tank at Les Granges, from where the pressure pipe leads to the Vernayaz headquarters. The center can process a maximum of 17.4 m³ / s and returns the water approximately 200 m below the mouth of the Trento into the Rhone .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Federal Department of the Interior (Ed.): Statistics on hydropower plants in Switzerland on January 1, 1928 . January 1928, p. 388 .
- ^ A b Emil Huber-Stockar : The electrification of the Swiss Federal Railways by the end of 1928 . In: New Year's Gazette of the Natural Research Society in Zurich . Special edition, 1929, p. 21 .
- ^ The Barberine power station of the SBB In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . tape 73 , no. 22 , 1919, doi : 10.5169 / seals-35635 ( seals.ch ).
- ↑ Switzerland (ed.): More electricity for the SBB . No. 10 , 1950, p. 4–5 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-774395 .
- ↑ a b c d Philippe Rochat: The Châtelard II-Barberine pumped storage facility of the Swiss Federal Railways: Aspects of the modernization and expansion of the power plant . In: Swiss engineer and architect . tape 97 , 1979, doi : 10.5169 / seals-85541 ( e-periodica.ch ).
- ^ G. Leupin, R. Linz, R. Léchot: Les pompes nourrices de la centrale de Châtelard-Barberine II . In: Ingénieurs et architectes suisses . 1979, doi : 10.5169 / seals-73860 ( e-periodica.ch ).