In operation for 30 years - before its time?

On December 1, 1978, when Nordwestdeutsche Kraftwerke AG officially brought the world’s first air-storage -gas-turbine power plant online, it was received as a pioneering event and even a “world premiere”. Despite the cold weather, numerous power supply experts as well as journalists and members of local government gathered in a heated tent to be present when Dr. Josef Schweer, district president of Weser-Ems, pressed the button to bring this new type of power plant online.

A display panel showed the guests how, within just a few minutes, the gas turbine’s speed climbed to 3000 rpm and soon reached its full capacity of 290 megawatts. But the fact that this turbine was the world’s highest-output gas turbine at the time was not what made headlines that day. The real news was the idea of storing energy.

This remains true today. The Huntorf power plant has been available as a peak-load power plant using the same technology for 30 years. In 2006, the gas turbine’s output was increased to 321 megawatts.

Interest in the Huntorf power plant continues as well. In the current debate about using more renewable energy sources to generate power, the principle of “energy storage” is as desirable as ever.

As part of the E.ON Research Award initiative - an international competition in which the 2007 theme was “Energy Storage” - E.ON awarded a total of 6 million Euros of funding to ten research projects, including the Institute for Heat and Fuel Technology at the Technical University of Braunschweig. The Institute is working on improving compressed air storage systems in order to store surplus wind energy and thus be able to provide electricity to the system as needed.