Pleidelsheim hydropower plant
The Pleidelsheim hydropower plant is a run-of-river power plant in Pleidelsheim am Neckar . It was inaugurated in 1915 and was the largest power plant in the Kingdom of Württemberg at the time . The plant's powerhouse is a listed building .
At the weir of the power station, a dam of 3.96 meters above mean water is achieved. The power plant is operated by Süwag AG , which emerged in 2001 through the intermediate step Kraftwerk Altwürttemberg AG (KAWAG) from Elektrizitätswerk Beihingen-Pleidelsheim AG, which was founded in 1909.
prehistory
In 1891, Stuttgart registered with the Ludwigsburg Oberamt that they wanted to build several hydropower plants between Neckargröningen and Beihingen to supply the city of Stuttgart with electricity . For this purpose, the city had already bought three Neckar mills and the associated water rights and the engine in Poppenweiler . In 1892, however, the application was withdrawn: the construction of the steam power plant in Stuttgart in 1894 and the expansion of the hydropower plant in Marbach am Neckar were initially sufficient to cover the capital's electricity needs and the hydropower plant project threatened to become too expensive due to ministerial requirements.
In 1904, the Benninger mayor Ernst Zanker in Stuttgart asked whether a hydropower plant could be built, but the plans were again put on hold. Zanker then called on a consortium headed by the Stuttgart banking house Schwarz to apply for the right to use water on the Benninger Markung.
The Stuttgart banker Karl Ludwig Albert Schwarz actually accepted this suggestion. He applied for the concession together with Felten and Guillaume-Lahmeyer from Frankfurt am Main, and secured the support of the senior official Dr. Martin Bertsch, and on July 21, 1906, the Ludwigsburg official body came into possession of a permit to found an electricity company, in the financing of which the Schwarz bank was to be involved with a considerable amount of capital. However, the submitted plans were not approved: They provided for the construction of a power station on the left bank of the Neckar, which ran counter to the plans to expand the Neckar for large-scale shipping. As a result, Schwarz planned a power plant on the right bank with the Elektrizitätswerk-Aktiengesellschaft Guillaume-Lahmeyer-Werke, as the Stuttgart competition had already done.
Stuttgart now tried to secure an advantage in the battle for approval by purchasing the Kleiningersheimer mill and its rights. If the city had been allowed to build the power plant at this point, a total gradient of 7.92 meters would have been achieved and the plans to channel the Neckar would have also been supported. Nevertheless, Schwarz won the day: on December 6, 1909, he was granted the concession to dam the Neckar above Beihingen and to take advantage of the gradient between river kilometers 162.5 and 152.9. Stuttgart had a 35 percent stake in this company, Schwarz 65 percent. Important for the surrounding communities was the passage that the use of hydropower should “primarily and forever” benefit Ludwigsburg and the surrounding area - not just the capital. The company's headquarters also had to be in Ludwigsburg. On March 22, 1910, the company Elektrizitätswerk Beihingen-Pleidelsheim, which had already been founded in 1909, was entered in the commercial register. The board members were director Karl Becker from Frankfurt, consul Albert Schwarz from Stuttgart and later also director Bernhard Monath from Ludwigsburg. Professor Bernhard Salomon from the Lahmeyer Group became chairman of the supervisory board, and Martin Bertsch became his deputy.
Concession agreements were concluded with numerous municipalities even before construction began. Connections that initially appeared unprofitable were also relocated, as it was assumed that customers would quickly purchase additional electrical devices if they could only benefit from the power supply in the first place.
At first it was believed that the construction of the power plant could begin in the spring of 1911. But after the Dynamowerk in Frankfurt was transferred from Felten und Guillaume Lahmeyer-Werke AG to Elektrizitäts-Aktien-Gesellschaft , the construction contract first had to be transferred to this new owner. In addition, there were personnel changes in Stuttgart, so that by January 1911 only one company headquarters could be set up in Ludwigsburg.
Since the concession was tied to the start of construction within four years of being granted, the mayors of the surrounding communities that were to benefit from the hydropower plant wrote a letter to the royal government of the Neckar District in Ludwigsburg on April 11, 1912, complaining that the start of construction has been postponed further and further. The government should urge those responsible to hurry. Not even the water police permit had been obtained by this time. But it was not until November 27, 1912 that the General Assembly decided unanimously to actually build the hydropower plant.
Construction of the power plant
On April 2, 1913, the final version of the concession document was available, as was the approval for the construction of the necessary facilities. At this point in time, the Berlin office Havestadt und Contag had already been entrusted with the preparation of all plans and calculations. Pleidelsheim should receive 45 percent of the trade tax due, Beihingen 35 and Benningen 30. In addition, these communities should be allowed to light their streets and public buildings free of charge and also receive electricity for one water pumping station free of charge, albeit not in unlimited amounts.
A restricted tender for the construction contract was issued to eight companies; from this the company Edwards and Hummel / Alfred Kurz from Munich emerged as the winner. This began even before the official contract was signed with the construction of the construction site. In May 1913, excavation work began. The weir had to be built above Beihingen, the canal inlet had to be designed, a four-kilometer-long upper canal, the Riedbach underpass, and a machine house had to be built in Pleidelsheim, where a barge sluice was to be built, as well as a fish ladder and the 125-meter-long lower canal . In addition, two road bridges and two dirt road bridges were needed. All of this work was done at the same time. Were used bucket chain excavators and steam backhoe , but in addition also explosives . Several hundred workers were employed on the construction sites, sometimes at night. Some of them came with the construction company from Bavaria, but also from Austria, Switzerland and Italy. At the official start of construction in 1913, 300 workers were already employed on the construction site, later there were up to 700. The outbreak of war resulted in a sharp decline in these numbers. The workers withdrawn as a result of the mobilization were evidently to be replaced relatively quickly by semi-skilled workers from, among others, Gemmrigheim and again from Bavaria; in addition, a large part of the work had already been done when the First World War broke out.
A foreman received 90 pfennigs an hour as wages , a competent bricklayer or cementer 80, and an unskilled worker 58. The overtime bonuses were 25 percent during the day and 50 percent at night as well as on Sundays and public holidays.
Excavation, gravel and sand were transported on a 22 kilometer long track system with twelve locomotives and 150 wagons. This prompted a commentator in the Postillon , the Marbacher Official and Advertisement Gazette, on July 23, 1913, to point out that the state parliament could have learned here how to quickly and cheaply build a railway that is also not constantly affected by delays, such as they are common practice at the Württemberg State Railways.
When the First World War broke out, the canal bed and canal inlet, gates and winches on the weir and the shell of the Wehrmeister's homestead and the machine house were already finished. In October 1914, the turbines were assembled and the generators installed. From Christmas 1914, the first electricity was generated in trial operation, and in April 1915 electricity generation was started in full.
Effects of power plant construction on the environment and other economic sectors
Even before construction began, critics of the power plant construction warned that the Neckar river bed would dry out and the associated risk of disease. They also complained that local residents would be denied swimming in the river; however, the swimming ban in the power station canal was apparently not taken very seriously by the young people in the decades that followed.
However, the fish stocks in the Neckar declined and changed due to the establishment of the power plant. Species such as brown trout and barbel disappeared. The construction of the fish ladder, which should even be illuminated electrically if necessary, could not change anything. The leaseholder of the Fischwassers Ernst Kroll received compensation until the expiry of his lease. The right of the Beihinger to fish in the kitchen, which was documented in a contract from 1554 and also extended to the power station canal, was only replaced by the water and shipping administration in 1960.
Karl Nanz and Ernst Strohhäcker, who had been mining gravel on the Neckar on a large scale since 1905 and had even built a cable car to the Beihingen- Heutingsheim station for this purpose , raised objections to the construction of the hydropower plant, as did the Großingersheim municipality, which was interested in the lease income. Thereupon the developer was obliged to maintain the Kleiningersheim weir and to ensure that there was enough water in the old Neckar bed so that the gravel dredging could be maintained by ship. Alternatively, he was also allowed to provide another suitable means of transport.
inauguration
The inauguration of the power plant was celebrated on February 9, 1915, in what was felt to be rather simple at the time due to the war. King Wilhelm II of Württemberg , accompanied by his general and his wing adjutants , arrived in a Mercedes. First of all, the Beihingen weir was visited, where Bernhard Salomon gave a speech in a specially erected tent. Afterwards, Wilhelm II and 30 other festival participants drove to Pleidelsheim on a decorated barge pulled by a steamboat to the cheers of the population. At the turbine house the king was received by Klärchen Monath with a bouquet of flowers and a poem. Wilhelm then visited the power station and signed a golden book there, before the celebration ended in the Hirsch Gasthaus in Großingersheim .
Operation, changes and renovations of the Pleidelsheim hydropower plant
Electrically powered winches were used to open and close the weir locks as early as 1915. The gears and drives are still original, only the lifting chains were renewed in the 1990s.
The sewer inlet structure was built at right angles to the weir axis in Beihingen. A rake was installed in front of his archers to protect them from floating debris and ice floes. The four-kilometer-long power station canal was laid out with a floor width of 22 meters and a water level of 30 meters. In the middle the water depth was three meters.
Since the construction of the federal waterway in the 1950s, shipping on the Neckar has had priority over power generation. Since a certain water level has to be maintained for federal shipping, the output of the power plant drops in hot, dry times. This construction was accompanied by the concreting of the old weir in Beihingen, which was supposed to protect against flooding. A new flood barrier was built as a replacement.
The canal, which runs parallel to the natural course of the Neckar, achieves a fall of almost eight meters, which is used at the power house, where the water falls vertically into the lower course. Since the expansion of the federal waterway and the construction of the Pleidelsheim double lock , the actual power station canal is only 1.6 kilometers long. The rest of this canal is now considered a shipping route. The step height of the Pleidelsheim lock corresponds to the gradient specified by the power plant.
The power plant has four overpressure turbines, initially vertical-axis Francis shaft turbines. In 1937 two of the Francis turbines were replaced by more powerful units. In 1984/85 new turbines and coils were installed in the power plant. This enabled a higher water throughput.
In the turbines, flow energy is converted into rotational energy, which in turn is converted into electrical energy. The turbines are connected by a steel shaft to a generator in the 47.5 meter long and 10.5 meter wide machine room; the speed is maintained at 83.33 per minute.
While in the early years an average of around 20 million kilowatt hours could be produced per year, in 1989 the highest annual production to date was reached with 32 million kilowatt hours.
In 1976, an automatic trash rack cleaning system was installed instead of the old coarse filter. The generators were refurbished in the 1980s.
Damage from flooding
In 1824 the highest flood ever recorded on the Neckar took place. The Pleidelsheim hydropower plant was therefore designed in such a way that it should be able to withstand a flood of this strength. The flood barrier, built in the 1950s, is completely closed during major floods. Even in the case of a strong flood in 1978, no accident happened. The situation was different with the June floods in 2013 : At that time the flood gate, the chains of which had to be replaced, was removed. One of the four fields of the weir was also expanded because it was being revised. When the situation became dramatic, the Waterways and Shipping Office decided to build a dam in the shipping canal near Beihingen. Almost 4,000 tons of stones were dumped into the canal within 24 hours, half of which was closed. As a result, part of the water was diverted into the Altneckar and the flow speed increased accordingly. A whirlpool hole formed, to which the forefoot of the sheet pile walls fell victim over a length of 20 meters. Pleidelsheim was threatened by water that leaked from the dam.
literature
- Beate Volmari: Full of excitement. One hundred years of the Pleidelsheim hydropower plant. Story (s) of the king, consul and canal workers , ed. from the community of Pleidelsheim, Pleidelsheim 2015
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ On April 30, 1913, Elektrizitätswerk Beihingen-Pleidelsheim AG became Kawag (Kraftwerk Altwürttemberg Aktiengesellschaft). In 1918, the Bad Wimpfen power station was bought and the supply area expanded. In 1923 they participated in the construction of the coal-fired power plant in Heilbronn , which fed part of the electricity it generated into the Kawag network. Soon after, the old 10 had kilovolts ¯ lines by 60-kilovolt lines replaced. Until the outbreak of the Second World War , sales continued to rise. In 1949 the expansion from alternating current to three-phase current began ; At that time, the shares in the coal-fired power station in Heilbronn were given up and a connection to the Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerk AG was sought instead. In 1980 Kawag changed from an electricity company to a general energy supply company and participated in the distribution and delivery of natural gas . Later she also experimented with electricity from landfill gas, photovoltaics etc. In 2001, Kawag merged with various energy suppliers to form Süwag AG. This operates a total of 16 run-of-river power plants, one of which is the power plant in Pleidelsheim, which was built in 1915. See Beate Volmari, Full of Tension. One hundred years of the Pleidelsheim hydropower plant. Story (s) of the king, consul and canal workers , ed. from the community of Pleidelsheim, Pleidelsheim 2015, pp. 90–95.
- ↑ Quoted from: Beate Volmari, Full of tension. One hundred years of the Pleidelsheim hydropower plant. Story (s) of the king, consul and canal workers , ed. from the community of Pleidelsheim, Pleidelsheim 2015, p. 16.
- ^ Based on : Beate Volmari, Full of tension. One hundred years of the Pleidelsheim hydropower plant. Story (s) of the king, consul and canal workers , ed. from the community of Pleidelsheim, Pleidelsheim 2015, p. 36.
- ↑ Beate Volmari, Full of suspense. One hundred years of the Pleidelsheim hydropower plant. Story (s) of the king, consul and canal workers , ed. from the community of Pleidelsheim, Pleidelsheim 2015, pp. 8–11
| Upstream | Crossing the Neckar | Downstream |
| Weir Beihingen | Pleidelsheim hydropower plant |
Hessigheim barrage |
Coordinates: 48 ° 58 '12 " N , 9 ° 12' 7.8" E