Vockerode Power Plant (also called Elbe Power Plant) was a lignite and later also gas-fired power plant in Vockerode, East Germany. It was built in 1937 and shut-down between 1994 and 1998.
Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat content. It has a carbon content around 60–70 percent. It is mined all around the world, is used almost exclusively as a fuel for steam-electric power generation, and is the coal which is most harmful to health.
Vockerode is a village and a former municipality in the district of Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2011, it is part of the town Oranienbaum-Wörlitz. At Vockerode, there was a large coal-fired power plant, the Vockerode Power Plant. On the area of this power plant was the static inverter of world's first HVDC, the Elbe Project.
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic, was a country that existed from 1949 to 1990, when the eastern portion of Germany was part of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. It described itself as a socialist "workers' and peasants' state", and the territory was administered and occupied by Soviet forces at the end of World War II — the Soviet occupation zone of the Potsdam Agreement, bounded on the east by the Oder–Neisse line. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin but did not include it; as a result, West Berlin remained outside the jurisdiction of the GDR.
History
Vockerode has been the site of a power plant for almost 60 years. While the four chimneys of the plant were demolished in 2001, much of the original building still exists today. Till 2013 it was used for events and art display. Today plant is unsafe and closed to public.
A chimney is an architectural ventilation structure made of masonry, clay or metal that isolates hot toxic exhaust gases or smoke produced by a boiler, stove, furnace, incinerator or fireplace from human living areas. Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion in what is known as the stack, or chimney effect. The space inside a chimney is called the flue. Chimneys are adjacent to large industrial refineries, fossil fuel combustion facilities or part of buildings, steam locomotives and ships.
The first block of the lignite-fired power plant (6 x 35 MW) was built between 1937 and 1940. After 1943 installation was begun on the world's first commercial HVDC, the Elbe Project. It was completed in 1945, but never went in service. The power plant suffered no damage during World War II. After dismantling of the equipment during the soviet occupation the inverter hall was transformed into a workshop. A lot of equipment from the power plant was also dismantled. Between 1953 and 1959 the power plant was refurbished and a second block (12 x 36 MW) was built to provide for growing electricity demands of industry and households in the German Democratic Republic.
The Elbe Project was the name of the first commercial, static high voltage direct current transmission system constructed in the world. The scheme was based on mercury arc valves.
A valve hall is a building which contains the valves of the static inverters of a high-voltage direct current plant. The valves consist of thyristors, or at older plants, mercury arc rectifiers. Mercury arc rectifiers are usually supported by insulators mounted on the floor, while thyristor valves may be either supported by insulators or hung from the roof of the valve hall. The latter required a stronger ceiling structure, however the hall and the static inverter can better survive earthquakes compared to valve structures standing on the floor.
On July 22, 1960 an Ilyushin Il-14 plane of the GDRarmed forces flying through dense fog scratched one of the chimneys and crashed. Seven people on board the plane and a worker on the ground were killed.
The Ilyushin Il-14 was a Soviet twin-engine commercial and military personnel and cargo transport aircraft that first flew in 1950, and entered service in 1954. Il-14 was also manufactured in East Germany by VVB Flugzeugbau, in Czechoslovakia as the Avia 14. The Ilyushin Il-14 was typically replaced by the Antonov An-24 and Yakovlev Yak-40.
The National People's Army was the armed forces of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1956 to 1990.
Fog is a visible aerosol consisting of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. Fog can be considered a type of low-lying cloud, usually resembling stratus, and is heavily influenced by nearby bodies of water, topography, and wind conditions. In turn, fog has affected many human activities, such as shipping, travel, and warfare.
After 1968 the city of Dessau was supplied with heat from Vockerode Power Plant via a 15 kilometres long line. In 1971 a gas turbine power plant was built, which consisted of six 27 MW units. Between 1972 and 1974 greenhouse facilities were built on an area of 64 hectares, which were heated by the power plant, for growing tomatoes and cucumbers.
Dessau is a town and former municipality in Germany on the junction of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it has been part of the newly created municipality of Dessau-Roßlau. Population of Dessau proper: 77,973.
A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous combustion, internal combustion engine. The main elements common to all gas turbine engines are:
An upstream rotating gas compressor;
A combustor;
A downstream turbine on the same shaft as the compressor.
A greenhouse is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic conditions are grown. These structures range in size from small sheds to industrial-sized buildings. A miniature greenhouse is known as a cold frame. The interior of a greenhouse exposed to sunlight becomes significantly warmer than the external ambient temperature, protecting its contents in cold weather.
The green house facilities were shut down in 1991, and demolished in 1997. In 1994 the lignite power plant was shut down. In 1998 the gas turbine power plant was shut down and on September 22, 2001 the chimneys were demolished by explosives. In 2005 the oil tanks of the gas turbine plant were demolished.
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.
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