Austria utility Verbund announced plans March 30 to build a 350-MW Reisseck 2 pumped-storage project in Austria.
Verbund General Director Hans Haider said the project represents an investment of about 215 million euros (US$287 million) and 3,000 person-years of employment. Verbund’s hydropower subsidiary, Verbund Austrian Hydro Power AG, is to plan and build the project.
Reisseck 2 is to undergo an environmental impact assessment process, with a declaration submitted by mid-2008. If that is completed according to schedule, the project should be completed by 2014.
Reisseck 2 will be an addition to the six-plant, 138.1-MW Reisseck/Kreuzeck hydroelectric complex in Upper Carinthia. Verbund took bids earlier this year to refurbish two generators at the complex. (HNN 1/23/07)
The six plants in the complex include 67.5-MW Reisseck annual storage, 23.2-MW Reisseck daily storage, 45-MW Kreuzeck daily storage, 1.6-MW Niklai, 600-kW Muhldorf, and 200-kW Steinfeld.
Verbund said a special feature of Reisseck 2 is that existing storage and equalizing basins with a head of 580 meters will be used. A five-kilometer tunnel will connect the Reisseck annual storage reservoir and the 730-MW Malta Hauptstufe power plant. Reisseck 2 is to have an underground powerhouse.
The existing Grosser Muhldorfer See reservoir on the Reisseck lake plateau will be used as an upper reservoir in pump operation while the lower reservoirs will be the Gosskar and Galgenbichl reservoirs of the Malta power plant group, Malta Hauptstufe, 120-MW Malta Oberstufe, and 41-MW Malta Unterstufe.
