Hermann Wenzel power plant

"Hermann Wenzel" power plant
	Look at the power station from the opposite bank of the Rhine from
	location
	North Rhine-Westphalia , Germany
Coordinates	51 ° 27 '35 " N , 6 ° 43' 50" E Coordinates: 51 ° 27 '35 " N , 6 ° 43' 50" E
country	Germany
Waters	Rhine
	Data
Type	Steam power plant
Primary energy	fossil energy
fuel	Dome gases from steel production ( furnace gas , coke oven gas ) ; Hard coal (as a reserve)
power	339 megawatts
owner	ThyssenKrupp
Start of operations	1955
Shutdown	2001 (only block 1 after explosion)
turbine	Steam turbines
Chimney height	160 m

The power plant "Hermann Wenzel" (also Ruhrort power plant or power plant Laar called) is a power plant of ThyssenKrupp AG , located in Duisburg between the districts Laar and Ruhrort on a off the integrated steel mill of ThyssenKrupp Steel lying premises.

The power station burns dome gases from steel production ( blast furnace gas , ...) as well as coke oven gas from the nearby Schwelgern coking plant . In return for the fuel gases, the iron and steel works and coking plant are supplied with electricity and process steam. Electrical surpluses are fed into the public grid. The power plant has a total electrical output of 339 megawatts and its chimney is 160 meters high.

history

Construction and operation under changing owners

The power plant was built between 1953 and 1955. At that time the plant still belonged to August Thyssen -Hütte AG , a merger of the five Duisburg ironworks of the United Steelworks (VSt). At that time there were still numerous blast furnaces and coking plants in the area that supplied the fuel gases required for the power plant.

The new power plant was named in honor of Dr. Hermann Wenzel (1882–1954), the former chairman of the board of directors and supervisory board chairman of the VSt who died shortly before the completion of the plant, and formerly also board member of the German-Luxembourgish mining and smelting company and the Gelsenkirchener Bergwerk AG .

At about the same time as the completion of the power plant, the United Steelworks were disentangled and the Duisburg-Ruhrort plant became Phoenix-Rheinrohr AG .

In 1963 and 1966 the power plant was expanded by one block each .

With the Phoenix ironworks, the power plant was taken over again in 1966 by Thyssen AG , which merged the plant into ThyssenKrupp AG in 1997. ThyssenKrupp operates another power plant in Duisburg, the Hamborn combined heat and power plant, in order to cover its own electricity requirements.

Explosion in Block 1 in 2001

On January 8, 2001, three serious explosions occurred in the power plant. This occurred after an incorrectly opened valve was used to flow compressed air into a coke gas line during revision work on Unit 1, creating an explosive mixture that ignited. The block was badly damaged; Windows and parts of the masonry of the facade were pushed out and the boiler house caught fire. Cars and other buildings in the area were damaged by the blast wave and fragments flying around. People were not harmed, but the property damage ran into the millions. Unit 1 was then shut down.

Structure and technology

The power plant used to have four boilers, each with its own steam turbine set; of these, only three have been in operation since the explosion in 2001 (see above):

block		1 (closed)	2	3	4th
Construction year		1955		1963	1969
power	Boiler steam volume in t / h	210		320	517
power	Gross nominal power of the steam turbine in MW	58	64	100	175
Fuel use	Furnace gas in m ³ / h	-	170,000	260,000	420,000
Fuel use	Coke gas in m ³ / h	-	20,000	35,000	40,000
Manufacturer	boiler	Dürr / Babcock	Buckau Wolf		EVT
Manufacturer	Steam turbine	Brown, Boveri & Cie.