With the successful delivery of the second "turbine screw" weighing 79 tonnes, the power plant project has reached the next milestone.
Austria's largest power plant project is on schedule. The next logistical hurdle has been overcome: both inlet "screws" for the pump turbines were delivered slowly but without incident through the 6 kilometre-long tunnel and lifted into place. The water can be fed up or down through this "screw" between the Mooserboden and Wasserfallboden reservoirs as required.
Good eyesight and steady hands were needed to guide the 79-tonne bulb turbine parts through the access tunnel into the power plant cavern of Limberg 3. Transport from Italy to Kaprun took four days. The last few kilometres literally went at a snail's pace: the special deep loader spent four hours inching its way through the narrow tunnel tubes.
The final stage involved lifting the parts off the deep loader from the higher entry cavern into the roughly 25 metre-lower machine hall. With this, the meticulously planned task was completed.
The "screw" is the spiral-shaped final part of the pipework for the generating water. Water reaches the Francis turbines at a rate of 72 m³ per second through each of the two spirals. The turbines can generate electricity either with falling water or by pumping the water up to physically store the energy in the higher Mooserboden reservoir. As the water achieves its maximum energy here, the load requirements on the curved steel pipe are enormous; just as high are the quality requirements for construction, materials and processing.
In the meantime, the installation and concreting works in the caverns are proceeding to plan. Reinforcement of the pressure shafts will commence in August and continue into the winter.
