Felsenau power plant

Felsenau power plant
Power plant in Felsenau
location
Coordinates	600036  /  201970 coordinates: 46 ° 58 '8 "  N , 7 ° 26' 21"  O ; CH1903:  600036  /  201970
country	Switzerland
place	Bern
Waters	Aare
Height upstream	488  m above sea level M.
power plant
owner	Energie Wasser Bern (EWB)
operator	Energie Wasser Bern (EWB)
Start of operation	November 6, 1909
technology
Bottleneck performance	11.3 megawatts
Average height of fall	10-14 m
Expansion flow	100 m³ / s
Standard work capacity	70 million kWh / year
Turbines	1 Kaplan bulb turbine
Others
Associated weir	Weir Engehalde
Website	[1]

The Felsenau power plant is a river power plant on the Aare in the Swiss federal city of Bern . The turbine house is located in the northern district of Felsenau , not far from the Felsenau brewery , and is operated by Energie Wasser Bern . The water inlet is at the Felsenausteg at the Vorderen Engehalde , where the Aare is dammed. The water is directed to the turbines under the narrow peninsula.

history

Spinning mill and power station (right) 1914

The Felsenau spinning mill had a water license and was planning to build a power station in place of the mechanical turbine system to better utilize the power of the water in the Felsenau. The Great Depression (1873–1896) ran into financial difficulties for the spinning mill. After a lengthy legal battle with the city of Bern, the city's spinning mill ceded the water usage rights in 1906. The city built a new tunnel and a power station from 1907 to 1910. In return, it had to supply the spinning mill with 800 kilowatts of electricity (20 percent of production) for an unlimited period of time free of charge and compensate the ceded land.

When the power plant was commissioned on November 6, 1909 by the power station of the city of Bern , the power plant had three Francis turbines , which generated a total of 2,600 kW. In 1912, the Felsenau power station supplied 64 percent of the electricity used in the city of Bern.

In 1918 the power plant was expanded to include two more Francis turbines, and in 1989 all five turbines were replaced by a Kaplan bulb turbine during a complete renovation .

technology

The diversion power plant uses a gradient of 10 to 14 m. Its output is 11,300 kW, which enables it to supply around 7,500 households.

The usable water volume of 100 m³ / s reaches the Engehalde weir through a 550 m long tunnel to the Felsenau power station, while the remaining water flows around the Engehalde peninsula in a predominantly natural, 9 km long river bed. The weir is also equipped with a doping power plant (residual water power plant) that was put into operation in 1998 and uses the prescribed residual water volume of 12 m³ / s. Its output is 460 kW, which is enough to supply almost 700 households, the used drop height is 3.6 m.

location

Location map of the power plants between Bern and Lake Biel.

See also

• List of hydropower plants in Switzerland

literature

• Christian Lüthi: The Felsenau spinning mill 1864–1975. An important chapter in Bern's industrial past . In: Bern journal for history . tape 64 , no. 02 , 2002 ( bezg.ch [PDF]).

Web links

Commons : Kraftwerk Felsenau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Christian Lüthi
2. ↑ ^{a b} Felsenau power plant ( memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ). Energie Wasser Bern. Retrieved September 23, 2013.
3. ↑ Dotierkraftwerk Engehalde ( Memento of 27 September 2013 Internet Archive ). Energie Wasser Bern. Retrieved September 23, 2013.