Moserdamm
The Moserdamm was the first hydropower plant on the Upper Rhine in Schaffhausen , Switzerland . Before the advent of electricity, the energy gained was transferred mechanically to the decreasing businesses. In connection with the power station, Europe's first aerial cableway was built in 1866 . After almost a hundred years of operation, the power plant was replaced by a modern one after 1960.
history
After Heinrich Moser returned to Switzerland as a wealthy man, he invested part of his fortune in the economic development of his hometown Schaffhausen. 1850-1851 he built the first power station with 80 hp ( 58.8 kilowatts ) on the left bank of the Rhine . This supplied a sawmill, a blacksmith's shop, a locksmith's shop, a mechanical workshop, textile companies and a cable factory via wire rope transmissions.
Building on positive experiences, he planned a far larger power plant for which the Rhine had to be dammed. Construction began in October 1863. One of the employees was the engineer François Borel . The dam, which was completed in the winter of 1864/65, broke in the spring of 1865. After the central section of the dam had been repaired in the winter of 1865/66, the power station was put into operation on April 9, 1866. The second power plant was also on the left bank and had an output of 600 hp (0.44 megawatts). Its turbines drove huge wire rope transmissions that transmitted the mechanical energy across the Rhine and then along the right bank to various workshops and a large industrial hall. At stations with gears, the force could be diverted in other directions.
This «power telegraph» transmitted the energy over a distance of around 500 meters, initially to 13 and later to 23 commercial customers. Disadvantages of this solution, in addition to transmission losses, were high idling or partial load losses due to the large number of gear wheels, bearings and ropes that were constantly running. In addition, there was a need for maintenance and wear and tear. At the same time, however, Werner von Siemens discovered the dynamo-electric principle in 1867 , and a little later methods for transmitting electricity over longer distances were also developed.
Another turbine house was built in 1887–1889. Since then, the Moserdamm's turbines have been converted to electrical power generation. The transmission was removed around 1900. The remains of the pillar foundations are under the Rheinuferstrasse. Despite several increases in capacity, the systems were no longer able to cope with the growing demand from cities and industry. After a long planning phase, the Moserdamm was removed in 1961 and replaced by the new Schaffhausen power plant with 26 megawatts of bottleneck capacity by 1963 .
Other Projects
Another hydropower plant for the production of mechanical energy was planned in 1872 by the Warsaw engineer Georg von Struve on the Upper Rhine near Rheinfelden AG . He was granted a concession in 1873, but Struve died in 1876 and his plan was never carried out. It wasn't until 1898 that Europe's first large run-of-river power plant went into operation with the Rheinfelden power transmission plant (KWR) .
The cable car on Moserdamm
The first aerial cableway in Europe was built in 1866 for material transport and personnel changes in the turbine house. The track was created by J. J. Rieter & Cie. in Töss near Winterthur. It was driven with hand cranks on both banks. At the end of the 1870s, the railway was replaced by an iron footbridge, as it had proven to be unreliable, especially in winter.
model
A working model of the Moserdamm can be seen in the Museum zu Allerheiligen in Schaffhausen.
See also
literature
- Peter Niederhauser: Schaffhausen - Moserdamm, Rhine Falls, pumped storage. In: The history of water corrections and the use of hydropower in Switzerland (conference proceedings). Basel 1983.
- Serge Paquier: Histoire de l'électricité en Suisse. Geneva 1998, ISBN 2-940014-15-9 , pp. 304-320.
- Jürgen Schafranietz: Historical and current water use on the Upper Rhine and in the southern Black Forest - processes and conflicts. Dissertation, Freiburg im Breisgau 2015, pp. 43, 45 f.
- Karl Schib: Heinrich Moser. In: biographies. Volume I: Schaffhausen Contributions to History. 33rd year, Schaffhausen 1956, pp. 301-310.
- Daniel Vischer: From the waterway to the energy axis. In: The citizen in the state. Issue 2, Volume 50 (2000), pp. 93–98.
Web links
- Bruno Sternegg: Moserdamm. Extensive photo documentation from the building and non-electrical operating time.
- Serge Paquier: Moser, Heinrich. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolfgang Bocks: Technical Revolution in Rheinfelden. On the history of the Rheinfeld power plant projects. In: Rheinfelder Neujahrsblätter. 51st year, Rheinfelden / Switzerland 1995, pp. 8–31.
- ↑ Moserdamm. In: Bruno Sternegg: Schaffhausen Photo Archive. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
- ^ Gustav Dieterich: The invention of the cable cars . Leipzig 1908. p. 59 f. ( Digitized version ).