Elbe Project

Same project was the name of the first commercial high-voltage direct current transmission system, whose technique was based on the use of mercury vapor rectifiers.

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The preparatory developments took place at the Institute of High Voltage Engineering and Electrical Power Systems at the TU Braunschweig in Braunschweig / Salzgitter Hallendorf.

After several experimental systems (among a line between Wettingen and Zurich as well as between Charlottenburg and Moabit ) showed 1933-1942, that a transfer of electrical energy high power with high-voltage direct current using mercury arc rectifiers is possible, it was decided in 1941, a bipolar underground cable line to build between the power plant "Elbe" ( Vockerode near Dessau ) and the industrial area of ​​Berlin -Marie Felde. On August 24, 1941, the work started at this facility, which should be in a position at a bipolar voltage of 200 kV, electrical energy of the power to transfer 60 MW. As a cable two pole cable were used. A piece of the cable can now be visited in the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

The high-voltage line of the Elbe project was never driven by the war in operation. After the Second World War, the system was dismantled by the Soviet occupying power and used to build a monopolar HVDC link between Moscow and Kashira, which went into operation in 1951. This system is no longer in operation today.

Only in 1993 went with the GKK Etzenricht a plant for the HVDC transmission operating in Germany. The construction of a similar facility in Wolmirstedt 1990 was stopped due to reunification.