Tauern power plant

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Tauern power plant , also known as a centralization project , is a hydroelectric power plant project for the Hohe Tauern in Austria developed by the Berliner Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft ( AEG ) between 1926 and 1928 .

With the help of slope canals, all of the water flowing off the Hohe Tauern should be collected at an altitude of 2,000 m above sea level and drained off centrally into two reservoirs in the Kaprun valley. The strongest proponent of this concept was the then Salzburg Governor Franz Rehrl (1890–1947). He saw the Tauernwerk as an opportunity to create jobs and thus a new self-confidence for his state. In 1928, the Württembergische Elektrizitätsgesellschaft (WEAG) submitted the “Venediger Project”, which competed with the “Centralization Project” of the AEG. The Österreichische Kraftwerke AG (ÖKA) also presented an alternative variant with the “ÖKA Tauern Project”. In order to refute the excessiveness and unrealisability of the centralization project criticized by experts, including Hermann Grengg (1891–1978), engineers at AEG created a test slope canal between the Wielingerbach and the Mooserboden in the Kaprun valley in 1929. Due to its open construction, it was not suitable for the extreme weather conditions prevailing in this high mountain location, which is why the engineers at AEG were accused of lacking expertise in building in the mountains.

Due to the global economic crisis at the beginning of the 1930s, the final end of the Tauern power plant seemed to be sealed. With the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in 1938, considerations began again for the exploitation of water power in the Hohe Tauern . Hermann Göring found out about the plans for the Tauern power plant and ordered it to be restarted. Hermann Grengg, who in the meantime had become head of the newly founded Alpen-Elektrowerke , a subsidiary of VIAG , was still critical of the concept and tried to reduce it to realizable dimensions. The Kaprun power plant was built under his leadership from 1938 . Construction began during the National Socialist regime with Jewish forced laborers housed in a camp in Kaprun.

literature

  • Tauernkraftwerke AG (Ed.): The main stage of the Tauernkraftwerke Glockner-Kaprun of the Tauernkraftwerke AG Festschrift, Vienna 1951.
  • Clemens M. Hutter: Kaprun. Story of a success. Salzburg / Vienna 1994.
  • Gerhard A. Stadler, Manfred Wehdorn, Monika Keplinger, Valentin E. Wille: Architecture in a network. Vienna 2007.

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