GKK Etzenricht

GKK Etzenricht, abbreviation for Gleichstromkurzkupplung) Etzenricht, that means Etzenricht HVDC-back-to-back station was an HVDC back-to-back facility near Etzenricht in the district of Neustadt in Bavaria, Germany. It was built up on area of Etzenricht substation, a 380 kV/220 kV/110 kV-substation, which went in service in 1970 and expanded afterwards several times. The operator of this facility, which was used between 1993 and 1995 for exchange of power between Germany and Czech was Bayernwerk AG (now E.ON Netz GmbH).HistoryConstruction started April 26, 1991 and was completed September 1991. First power was achieved in May 1992 and a powerline to Hradec, Czech was completed September 3, 1992. Trial operation started January 27, 1993 with official opening July 9, 1993. It was shutdown after synchronisation of the German and the Czech Power Grid on October 18, 1995.After the synchronization of the power grids between Germany and Czech the maximum amount of power, which can be transmitted between Etzenricht and Hradec increased from 600 MW to 1316 MW. The inauguration of the second 380 kV-interconnection to Prestice substation on July 29, 1997 increased the transmission capacity from Etzenricht to Czech to further 1579 MW, so via Etzenricht substation today a maximum power exchange of 2895 MW between Czech and Germany is possible.In 1997, after inauguration of the second 380 kV-powerline to Czech, which ends at Prestice substation, most external components of GKK Etzenricht were dismantled and stored on the area of the facility. Since beginning of this dismantling, the facility was not workable any more. Only the transformers, the smoothing reactor and one harmonic filter remained on their original sites. Since shutdown of the static inverter, it was planned to sell the installation to eastern Europe, where it would have allowed the construction of an HVDC back-to-back station for exchanging power between eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. As the static inverter went more and more out of date and one was meanwhile able to build static inverters like that of GKK Etzenricht much simpler by using photo thyristors, no such deal ever took place. In 2006 the facility was sold to IDPC, an Austrian recycling company, which wanted first to sell the installation completely and as this did not work, part by part. However, only a few components were sold. In spring 2009 all remaining components of GKK Etzenricht were dismantled and scrapped.