Climate Protection Campaign Day: Styrian Schools Visit Power Plants

To round off the priority education issue of "climate protection", more than 100 Styrian schools are today organising a day of action and thereby also taking a look behind the scenes of renewable energy production. Hundreds of students will be offered an exciting insight into the world of renewable energy - from the most powerful hydropower plant in Hieflau right through to the 85-year-old "workhorse" in Pernegg.

Since its commissioning in 1928, the power plant has delivered 600,000 operating hours of renewable electricity from hydropower. The Francis turbine, together with its generator, is now in retirement in Pernegg power plant and serves as a highlight on today’s climate protection day of action by Styrian schools. The day of action sees more than 100 schools celebrating the conclusion of the year’s priority education issue of "climate protection".

In its capacity as Styria’s largest electricity producer, VERBUND is opening its power plants to all interested schools and, alone on today’s day of action, is offering an exciting insight into the world of clean electricity production from hydropower at five major sites. Thus, several hundred students are visiting Austria’s most modern town power plant in Leoben, Styria’s most powerful hydropower plant in Hieflau, the largest Mur power plant of Gabersdorf, the reservoir power plant of Arnstein in Voitsberg or the 85-year-old hydropower plant of Pernegg, which was Austria’s largest run-of-river power plant at the time of its commissioning and is currently undergoing extensive renovation by VERBUND.

VERBUND’s Styrian hydropower plants save an annual two million tonnes of CO2

As initiator of the priority issue of "climate protection", president of the provincial school board, Wolfgang Erlitz, (together with deputy governor, Siegfried Schrittwieser), also informed himself about the environmental and climate protection aspects of electricity production from hydropower. VERBUND’s 42 Styrian hydropower plants have the capacity to annually produce as much electricity as is required by all of Styria’s private households: "If this electricity had to be produced in coal-fired power plants, for example, more than two million tonnes of carbon dioxide would be generated per year. This concrete contribution to climate protection is rendered by Styrian hydropower plants," explained Siegfried Demel, head of the VERBUND hydropower group in Styria.