Voith has won the order to modernize a motor-generator in the Vianden pumped storage plant in Luxembourg. The project covers the design, calculation, construction, delivery and assembly …

… of one of the two most powerful machines in the facility. In addition to the increase in capacity, the new motor-generator will also be able to respond faster to changes in the load requirements from the power grid when it goes back into operation. The choice and design of the components will also ensure longer service cycles. The work on the machine is scheduled to be completed by 2021.
The Vianden power plant, which is located right on the border between Germany and Luxembourg, feeds directly into the German electricity grid. This means that it is used as a flexible electricity storage system and to regulate the grid as part of the transition process to renewable energies. The plant is owned by Societé Electrique de l’Our S.A., and is marketed and operated by RWE Generation. As part of the upgrade, the motor-generator, which was installed in 1976, will be replaced by a new synchronous motor-generator from Voith that will increase the capacity of the generating set by around seven percent to 217 MW. The pump turbine remains unchanged. In addition, the new machine will be fitted with a modern starting frequency converter. “This replaces the direct start-up of the machine via start-up current limiting reactors and a complex damper winding for the generator rotor. With the new starting frequency converter the machine can respond even faster to load fluctuations in the power grid,” says Stefan Linhart, Project Manager at Voith Hydro in Germany. These kinds of fluctuations are typical for power grids that are increasingly being supplied by renewable energies.