Vattenfall (Waterfall)– Water pump storage
On our second day, the sun is shining and we leave early for the drive. After one hour driving we find ourselves in a tranquil area, pine forest and birds chirping and here we are told about a man made water reservoir on top of the mountain which feed the hydroelectric water pump station to generate electricity. The Goldistahl hydropower plant has been commissioned between 2003/2004. It is located in the eastern part of the Thurinigian forest. The top basin has a volume of 12 million cubic meters and the artificial lake created has a volume of 3,370 cubic meters alongside with a height that varies between 10 to 40 meters depending on the shape of terrain. This amount of water can be cleared in eight hours, operating the four turbines at full capacity which will generate 1,060MW. The four turbines are constructed by two large steel cased tubes with a diameter that diminish from 4.35 meters to 6.20 meters. The turbine can be started up in 19 seconds and it can also reach a nominal speed of 333 rotations per minute. |
Figure 8: A conceptual picture for the
whole hydropower system that has been owned by Vattenfall and it is one of the
biggest energy companies in Europe
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Moreover, a small scale water plant is situated in downstream, we are told the turbine can generate so much electric power that an emergency service of the pumped storage power plant can be maintained, even if all auxiliary power supply units breaks down. The water pump station is used only for peak time energy that are requesting from the national grid and this happens early in the morning, lunchtime and evening. Moreover, the supplying constant electricity would not be sustainable as extra energy would be required to pump water up to the reservoir and this is because it takes 12 hours to fill the top basin.
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Figure 9: Left is our driver P. Mullier and the right is Gary,
photo is taken in the site
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Figure 10: Left is Gary and the right is Salvatore,
this photo is taken outside of the site
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It is also good to note that this hydropower station is under controlled headquarter in Hamburg. If the HQ in Hamburg state that there is too much energy in the German’s gird, this site will start do the revering processing – use the cheap power in the night, use the turbines as a motor and pump the water back to the top basin, then generate electricity again in peak times if it is needed and sell the power back to the grid. It is about 30% of the power is offset to power the process so it is 70% for the energy efficiency.
In overall, Vattenfall is owned by Swedish Government. For Germany, Vattenfall has totally 11 pump storage facilities. Vattenfall is Swedish for Waterfall and it is the state of the art engineering feat the biggest of its kind in Europe. It is operated as a hydro-electric station free from emissions and a study on environmental compatibility has been set up for Goldisthal.
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Figure 11: We are having a group picture
in the tunnel during our great visit in this hydropower plant, Vattenfall, photo
credited by Gary
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VDE.8.1 ICE (Traffic project of Germany- Fast Train and New Railway development)
After we did the hydro visit, we are going to see the information point of traffic project in Germany. It is good to know that German are constructing a new railway work –‘ Long Tunnels for High Speed Train Project’, servicing from Munchen/Verona to Hamburg/Rostock. They will finish the whole construction in 2018 and start scheduling how’s the high speed train is going to run in those rail and tunnels.Actually, it is a great infrastructure as we seen today, we have taken our own gear such as helmet and a little save box that the train museum are provided. Then, we are going to visit the two famous tunnels – Tunnel Blebberg & Tunnel Goldberg. It is interesting to note that the German’s train company do have their own gird, and they are not just using renewable energy to run their own works, they are also buying non-renewable energy such as fossil fuel and coal burning for the electricity required for the whole train’s system.
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| Figure 12: Group picture in front of the Tunnel Blebberg, photo credited by Gary |
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Figure 13: Left is Salavatore and right is
Gary, we are in the outside of the train museum
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