The world’s first wind/pumped storage hybrid power plant – located in Gaildorf, Germany – is to be equipped with three reversible Francis pump turbines from Voith, the company has announced.
The Naturstromspeicher Gaildorf is a natural energy storage plant which uses awind farms’ four towers and bases with a total capacity of 160,000m3 as water reservoirs. The 3x16MW machines to be supplied by Voith will play a core element in the plant.
In a statement, Voith said it has been a strong partner in the project by contributing to the turbine development and adapting it to the special piping behavior and the long penstock.: “The Naturstromspeicher has been a very complex project in terms of Research and Development,” explained Alexander Schechner from the Naturspeicher GmbH. “In Voith we found an experienced partner understanding our needs.”
