Nussdorf Run-of-River Power Plant at the Danube canal

VERBUND's power plant at Nussdorf is a run-of river power plant situated on the Danube and near the Danube inlet to the Danube canal on the border between the 19th and 20th Vienna districts.

The famous Art Nouveau architect Otto Wagner designed an extraordinary welcome greeting for travellers approaching Vienna from the north along the Danube in the form of the Schemerl bridge in Nußdorf. Between them, the bronze lions guard not only a weir system to protect the Danube Canal from flooding but also a modern hydropower plant.

Twelve Matrix turbines use the gradient of the Danube Canal, which was made sufficiently attractive for generating energy only after construction of the Danube power plant Freudenau. One of them is the StreamDiver research turbine.

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Owner	Nußdorf Errichtungs- und Betriebs GmbH & Co KG
Operator	VERBUND Hydro Power GmbH
Commissioning	2005
Type	Run-of-river power plant
Country	Austria
Region	Vienna
Waters	Danube, Danube Canal
Output	05 MW
Annual output	28,141 MWh
Turbine	StreamDiver
Connectivity	Fish bypass

Environment & ecology

The fish bypass at Nußdorf was designed to cope with individual specimens of the Wels catfish, a key species of fish in the Danube measuring up to 1.5 metres in length, and overcomes a height difference of around 3.6 metres. It has a length of around 322 metres and consists of 37 migration ponds and a near-natural, open section of channel. The fish bypass was completed in 2017 and makes it possible for the fish to swim effortlessly around the obstacle posed by the power plant wall.

Blog entry fish bypass Nußdorf

Turbines and generators: Twelve hydro-matrix turbines with impeller diameters of 1.32 metres each and an average head of 3.8 metres have an output of 4.75 MW. Depending on the time of year, a volume of feed water of between 80 and 225 m³/s must be supplied to the Danube Canal, with up to 132 m³/s being possible. The generated energy is tapped at the Heiligenstadt substation of the regional supplier Wienstrom.

Weir system: The power plant does not have its own weir system, but instead, as a “flowed-over power plant”, flaps that are installed on the hollow body. At low water, these flaps are raised to reveal the weir body. During normal and high water, the flaps are flipped over to allow the river to flow completely over the weir body.

The Danube – the river to the power plant

The run-of-river power plant

Environmental certifications