Heimbach power plant

Heimbach power plant
	The hydropower plant in Heimbach
	location
	North Rhine-Westphalia , Germany
Coordinates	50 ° 37 '43 " N , 6 ° 27' 7" E Coordinates: 50 ° 37 '43 " N , 6 ° 27' 7" E
country	Germany
Waters	Urfttalsperre
	Data
Type	Storage power plant
Primary energy	water
power	16 MW
operator	RWE Innogy
Start of operations	August 8, 1905
turbine	2 Francis turbines
Energy fed in per year	25 GWh
Website	www.rwe-innogy.com

The Heimbach power plant , or the Urft power plant , is located in the north of the Eifel in the Rureifel in the urban area of Heimbach in the North Rhine-Westphalian district of Düren .

The hydropower plant was built in conjunction with the Urft Dam and put into operation on August 8, 1905. It is located on the Rur , but draws its water from the Urfttalsperre via the Kermeter tunnel , which merges into two pressure pipes 67 meters above the power station and emits a water volume of 16 m³ / s. At the inauguration, the power plant was the largest storage hydropower plant in Europe with a capacity of 12 megawatts and is operated by RWE Innogy .

Geographical location

The Heimbach power plant is located at the northern foot of the Kermeter in the Hohes Venn-Eifel Nature Park - immediately north of the Eifel National Park . It is located on the south bank of the Rur, south-west of the Heimbach district of Hasenfeld and south-east of the Heimbach settlement of Schwammenauel , which lies south-south-east of the dam of the Rurtalsperre . The power plant can be reached via the Rurbrücke on Kleestrasse coming from Hasenfeld , which is at 215.1 m above sea level at the power plant . NHN lies.

History and description

Sectional view of Kermeter with Kermeter studs

The power station is still in operation today. The original equipment with eight Francis turbines , each driving its own 1.5 MW generator , was in operation for almost 70 years. The turbines were decommissioned in 1975 and replaced by two new, more efficient machines. Two of the old machines have remained in place, as the new power generators take up significantly less space. Another is at the Moselle power station in Fankel , one for display purposes in the Weisweiler power station and one in Brauweiler . Since then, the system has had an installed capacity of 16 MW to cover peak loads , and is mainly in operation in the mornings of the weekdays. This requires up to 18 m³ of water per second. (For comparison: the most powerful wind turbine (as of 2017) is the MHI Vestas V164 with 9 megawatts of installed power.) At the maximum storage height of the dam, the drop to the power plant is 110 m.

The power plant is located in an Art Nouveau building designed by the architect Georg Frentzen , which is particularly worth seeing because of its complete preservation. A representative eye-catcher inside is the design of the control room for controlling the generators: All measuring devices and switches are made of brass and mounted on marble base plates , which are in turn framed in mahogany. The control room itself is located on a gallery above the machines. The two towers on the mountain side received their characteristic attachments again during the renovation from 1990 to 1991. The interior of the machine hall is freely spanned by iron binder structures.

The tunnel that was blown up in 1945

At the end of the battle in the Huertgen Forest , towards the end of the Second World War , German troops blew up the pressure pipes coming from the Urftsee in order to create a flood in the Rur River and to prevent the Allies from advancing through the Rur Valley .

In the book End of War 1944/1945 - Between the Ardennes and the Rhine by Hans-Dieter Arntz it says:

“On Wednesday, February 7, 1945, the third battalion of the 311st US Infantry Regiment occupied a small, desperately defending position of German infantrymen. The march of the Americans on the dam of the Rurtalsperre near Heimbach began. But General Rundstedt had left his detonators at this dam . On the following day, February 8, 1945, German pioneers blew the seals on the outlet pipes of the power station in Schwammenauel , and 100 cubic meters of water thundered into the bed of the Rur every second, causing a flood in the lowlands of the plains as it turned out several days later, but did not bring the hoped-for success. "

These actions at the Rurtalsperre and Kermeter adit of the Urfttalsperre caused the water level of the Rur to rise by 50 to 100 cm.

Culture

Since 1998, takes place in the power plant Heimbach, the chamber music - festival " tensions " rather than that of the pianist Lars Vogt is headed. During the concerts , the turbines are switched off because of their noise .
The RWE industrial museum with historical electrical appliances and other sights is located in the power plant .

gallery

Marble control panel
Three-phase generator
Door in the shape of a light bulb
Turbine regulator
Francis turbine
Turbine hall
The old Francis turbine with generator. The current location is Fankel on the Moselle
Heimbach hydropower plant

literature

Claudia Euskirchen, Olaf Gisbertz, Ulrich Schäfer (edit.): Dehio-Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler: Rhineland. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-422-03093-X , p. 461 f.

Web links

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

Innogy: Heimbach hydropower plant
Tensions: Music in the RWE Heimbach power plant. Kunstförderverein Kreis Düren eV, accessed on November 12, 2013 .

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c Our hydropower plants in the Eifel - data and facts. RWE Innogy GmbH , accessed on November 12, 2013 .

↑ Heimbach power plant turns 100. RWE Power AG , accessed on November 12, 2013 .

↑ Topographical Information Management, Cologne District Government, Department GEObasis NRW ( Notes )

↑ Hydropower plants in the Eifel. (PDF; 6.4 MB) RWE Innogy GmbH , October 4, 2012, accessed on November 12, 2013 .

↑ Water information - Art Nouveau power plant and RWE industrial museum. In: National Park Eifel. Bernd Blumberg, accessed on November 12, 2013 .

^ Georg Dehio , Ruth Schmitz-Ehmke : Handbook of German art monuments: North Rhine-Westphalia. Vol. 1. Rhineland . Ed .: Ernst Gall (= Dehio-Handbuch ). 2nd revised edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag , Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-422-03093-0 , p. 461 f .

^ Charles B. MacDonald: The Last Offensive: Chapter IV: The Roer River Dams. In: United States Army in World War II: European Theater of Operations. HyperWar Foundation, accessed November 12, 2013 .

↑ Hans-Dieter Arntz : End of the war 1944/1945 - Between the Ardennes and the Rhine. Kümpel, Euskirchen 1984; 3rd, supplemented edition 1986, ISBN 3-9800787-1-X , 679 pages; see p. 169

[RWEFakten-1] Our hydropower plants in the Eifel - data and facts. RWE Innogy GmbH , accessed on November 12, 2013 .

[RWECorporate-2] Heimbach power plant turns 100. RWE Power AG , accessed on November 12, 2013 .

[DE-NW_TIM-3] Topographical Information Management, Cologne District Government, Department GEObasis NRW ( Notes )

[RWEInnogy-4] Hydropower plants in the Eifel. (PDF; 6.4 MB) RWE Innogy GmbH , October 4, 2012, accessed on November 12, 2013 .

[NationalParkTor-5] Water information - Art Nouveau power plant and RWE industrial museum. In: National Park Eifel. Bernd Blumberg, accessed on November 12, 2013 .

[KunstVerlag-6] Georg Dehio , Ruth Schmitz-Ehmke : Handbook of German art monuments: North Rhine-Westphalia. Vol. 1. Rhineland . Ed .: Ernst Gall (= Dehio-Handbuch ). 2nd revised edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag , Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-422-03093-0 , p. 461 f .

[USArmy-7] Charles B. MacDonald: The Last Offensive: Chapter IV: The Roer River Dams. In: United States Army in World War II: European Theater of Operations. HyperWar Foundation, accessed November 12, 2013 .