Wallsee-Mitterkirchen: more renewable electricity from the Danube

Electricity from hydropower is by far the most important source of renewable energy in Austria. “We have great respect for the achievements of engineers during the economic upswing of the last century. Now is the time for us to continue this work and raise efficiency to a modern level,” says Achim Kaspar, Member of the Executive Board of VERBUND AG and responsible for electricity generation. “Upgrading and increasing efficiency is the basis of everything we do at all our facilities. This isn’t possible everywhere in the way it is here in Wallsee-Mitterkirchen. That is precisely why we’re particularly pleased with this project launch,” says Achim Kaspar. 

Endurance runner on the Danube in Upper and Lower Austria

“One of the key components of the energy transformation concerns the leveraging of additional generation as part of the revitalisation of existing power plants. However, as this will not be enough on its own, it is crucial that we push ahead with investments in new power plants at the same time. At VERBUND, we are currently investing 1.5 billion euros in the expansion of hydropower generation. In this way, we are making a significant contribution to the expansion target of generating only green electricity by 2030,” says Michael Amerer, Commercial Director of VERBUND Hydro GmbH.

“The Danube is and remains the backbone of electricity generation in Austria. Almost one in five kilowatt hours in the country is generated by our Danube power plants. The responsibility to remain technically up-to-date is correspondingly great. Our employees are therefore constantly working to further improve the efficiency and availability of our systems. And the example of Wallsee-Mitterkirchen very clearly shows that we are successful in this endeavour,” adds Karl Heinz Gruber, Technical Managing Director of VERBUND Hydro Power GmbH.

The planned modernisation package will increase the bottleneck capacity of the Danube power plant, which was built between 1965 and 1968, by around 10 MW to a total of 220 MW and increase average generation by around 54 million kilowatt hours to almost 1.4 billion kilowatt hours. This means that 390,000 households will be supplied with domestic renewable electricity from the Wallsee-Mitterkirchen power plant alone. The measure follows on from an ongoing overhaul of the electrical parts of the machine sets and generators.

In preparation for the upcoming first turbine replacement, painstaking diving work was required to seal off the machine area by installing dam beams. The actual replacement work can only begin in the coming weeks once the first machine has been successfully drained. The individual parts of the old and new turbines, which weigh more than 100 tonnes, are transported to and from the site by ship. 
The compact construction of the power plant makes the work more difficult for the team on site. A separate hall for assembly work had to be built on the left bank of the Danube near the lock, as the existing buildings lacked suitable space for such extensive reworking.