Background
My background is in the construction industry. Before joining EWK, I was the Chief Executive of a branch being responsible for construction of power plants and hydro projects of Hochtief AG, one of the world’s largest construction companies. I joined E.ON in 2004 as Managing Director of E.ON Wasserkraft.

Customer requirements
Our customers require “quality power” supply from EWK.  Quality means high reliability, low costs, and the ability to meet their demand requirements – even during peak demands. We accomplish this by producing the base-load power with our run-of-river power stations and the peak power with our pumped storage power plants. To meet our customers’ demands, we need high availability of the technical equipment in our stations.

Pumped storage power plants
Pumped storage power plants give us flexibility in meeting power demands. During times of high power consumption, the water from a reservoir is fed through our turbines. During off-peak times, the water is pumped back to the higher level basin. This enables primary and secondary control of power production and ensures stability of the European power grid.

The Reisach power plant
The Reisach station was started up in 1955 with two machine sets, and a third was added in 1961. The plant’s rated output in turbine operation mode is 105 MW, and in pump operation mode 81 MW. Each horizontal machine set consists of a Francis spiral turbine with a high-pressure spherical shutoff valve, a two-stage double-flow storage pump, and a Pelton starting turbine with toothed wheel coupling for rapid changeovers to pumped storage operation.

Refurbishments and upgrades
The mechanical equipment is designed to have a very long life. Refurbishment occurs very infrequently – every 12 to 20 years – primarily to decrease maintenance expenses. Refurbishment also aims at increasing plant safety (e.g. improving bearing lubrication, replacing guide vane shear pins, etc.). The most recent refurbishment of the pumped storage set R2 was in 1986.

Upgrades normally involve the changeing out of components which are near to the end of their life time – especially electronic control equipment. This enables the equipment to operate safely while unattended. In 1993-94, the entire Reisach automation and control room equipment was upgraded to the state-of-the-art.

Why Andritz?
We were familiar with Andritz as a manufacturer of large bulb turbines. Our contacts with Austrian power station operators, and the knowledge that Andritz was actively moving into the service business, led to our getting in touch with the company. We investigated their capabilities and references and started inviting them in 2001 to bid on our projects. We placed our first order with Andritz in 2003 for repair work on a pumped storage set and shutoff valves at Tanzmühle. In 2004, Andritz got the order for refurbishing the R2 pumped storage set at Reisach.  

Andritz performance
We found Andritz to be a very flexible company, with competent technical staff. The technicians were involved early in the bidding phase to answer our questions and to convince us of their professional skills.

While Andritz had three teams (technical, manufacturing, and erection) executing the project, this fact was never obvious to us. We had a single point of contact right from the start. This avoided duplication of effort and loss of information.

The quality of the workmanship was very high. Andritz suggested to machine two turbine covers on their lathe. This helped to avoid any alignment errors and eliminated extensive measurement work. Their documentation of the machine component handling has been outstanding.

We discussed all the important milestones together and they contributed to a trouble-free installation – in spite of the very challenging time schedule.

The start-up was very smooth. Interlocking of the project phases was completely without problems. This is noteworthy because the machine controls and mechanical protection devices were part of another project.

Safety
Workers’ safety is a very important aspect for EWK. The common goal of EWK and Andritz was to finish the project without any accidents. We achieved this thanks to the excellent communication and cooperation between the Andritz team and the EWK team.