2. Oskar Von Miller’s Vision
During the World War I era this region of Germany had a very
limited coal mine reserves
Oskar Von Miller advised that The Kingdom of Bavaria to
consider building hydroelectric plants as it was the most
ideal source of energy due to the structure of the landscape
in the region
His vision was to spread economic prosperity by supplying
hydroelectric power across the entire state of Bavaria
including its railways systems
Bavarian state parliament decided to build The Walchensee
Power Plant based on his proposal on June 21st 1918 and the
turbines spun for the first time on January 24th 1918 with a
capacity of 124 MW at the time
As of today, The Walchensee Power Plant boasts a
production of 300 GWh every year and still ranks as one of
3.
4. The Walchensee System of Energy Generation
The Walchensee Power Plant takes advantage of the altitude difference between Lake Walchensee
and Lake Kochelsee
Nearby rivers and channels were diverted to the higher altitude lake in order for it the be a
permanent storage basin
The Isar weir (1) was incorporated into the system in 1924
The Rißbach weir (3) was then later added in 1950
These channels produce regenerative electricity by first passing through the Obernach (2) and the
Niedernach (4) Power stations before reaching the Walchensee Power Station through 400 meters of
pipes below
5. Generating Electricity
from Lake Walchensee
1. Water flows through a 1200 meter long tunnel that leads to
the surge tank and pressure pipes
2. Water is deposited into a 10000 cubic meter water basin
• The basin evens out fluctuations caused by the turbines turning on
and off
3. Water then flows into six 400 meter pipes
• Diameters: 2.25 m at the top and 1.85 m at the bottom
• Pipe thickness: 10 mm at the surge tank and 27 mm at the power
station inlet
• Max pressure 28 bar and a net weight of 3600 tons
4. The 100 meter long engine room
• 4 Francis turbines connected 3 phase generators that produce 18
MW/turbine
• 4 Pelton impulse turbines connected to single phase generators
that produce 13 MW/turbine used to power the German railways
5. Supply grid
• Transformers converts the 6.6 kV from the generator to the main
line voltage of 110 kV
6. Discharge canal
1
2
3
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