Black houses power plant

Black houses power plant
East side of the machine house, photo from 1997
location
Coordinates	626 212  /  234015 coordinates: 47 ° 15 '24 "  N , 7 ° 47' 6"  O ; CH1903:  626212  /  234015
country	Switzerland  Bern Solothurn
place	Black houses
Waters	Aare
Height upstream	408  m above sea level M.
power plant
owner	Onyx Energie Mittelland AG
operator	BKW
Start of planning	1921
construction time	1922-1923
Start of operation	1923
technology
Bottleneck performance	6.1 megawatts
Average height of fall	4.5 m
Expansion flow	200 m³ / s
Standard work capacity	41 million kWh / year
Turbines	4 × propeller turbine
Others
was standing	2020

The Schwarzhäusern power plant , also known as the Wynau II power plant , is a run-of-river power plant on the Aare in Switzerland . The machine house of the diversion power plant , located in Schwarzhäusern in the canton of Bern , shares the same weir with the Wynau power plant . The canton border runs east of the engine house, so that the underwater is already in the canton of Solothurn .

history

At the end of the 1910s, the existing Wynau power plant was no longer sufficient to cover energy needs, which is why a second power plant was built on the opposite bank. The concession to use the Aare was granted in 1921 by the cantons of Bern and Solothurn, and the power plant was built between January 1922 and October 1923. The power plant was equipped with propeller turbines, which were still little known at the time - a design of the Kaplan turbine that did not yet have adjustable blades on the impeller. The higher speed compared to the previously used turbine types allowed the direct coupling of the turbine with the generator without the need for a transmission gear. The vertical-axis machine sets consisted of a turbine from Ateliers de constructions mécaniques de Vevey (ACMV) and a screen generator from Brown, Boveri & Cie. (BBC). At the start of operation only two, but in 1926 all four machine sets were installed.

The power plant was converted to automatic operation in 1963, from 1977 to 1979 the upper water channel was designed to be more streamlined and the lower water was dredged.

There are plans to replace the existing power plant with a new building that would increase production by 44 GWh. Due to the import of cheaper electricity from coal and nuclear power plants, the investment was not yet worthwhile from the operator's point of view in 2014.

Web links

Commons : Kraftwerk Schwarzhäusern  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} R. Hofmann: The propeller turbines of the new Wynau power station . 1924, doi : 10.5169 / SEALS-82880 .
2. ↑ ^{a b} Elektrizitätswerk Wynau der Elektrizitätswerke Wynau A.-G., Langenthal . In: Guide through the Swiss water industry . tape 1 , plant II (linksufirges plant), p. 555 .
3. ^ History. onyx Energie Mittelland, accessed on June 1, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Hans Wanzenried: Reconstruction of the upper water canal at the Schwarzhauser headquarters of the Wynau electricity works . In: ETH Zurich. Research institute for hydraulic engineering, hydrology and glaciology (ed.): VAW announcement . No. 33 , p. 213–220 ( ethz.ch [PDF]).
5. ↑ Roger Pfammatter: Expansion potential for hydropower in Switzerland - and the contribution of the VAR? Ed .: Association Aare-Rheinwerke. S. 18 ( swv.ch [PDF]).
6. ↑ onyx Energie Mittelland AG (Ed.): Annual Report 2014 . S. 7, 9 ( onyx.ch [PDF]).