The current Master’s students of our MSc Renewable Energy Systems recently met near Vienna to catch up on their lecture-related excursions. To make the most of the day, their road trip to see state of the art technologies started early and led them to the latest addition of our partner Energiepark Bruck/Leitha’s service portfolio, a small hydropower plant, currently in the building phase.
Projectmanagers Leo Gstrein and Ralf Roggenbauer from Energiepark Bruck/Leitha explained the planning phase, current status and next step of the project realized in Lower Austria. They also got to see a rather historical hydro plant nearby, where two out of three turbines are still active.
Next stop on their trip was the office of Energiepark Bruck/Leitha for a little lunch break and a short meet-up with Prof. Michael Harasek from TU WIEN. Prof. Harasek is an expert in biogas upgrading and the feeding process into the gas grid and has been highly involved in the planning phase of the next visited Biogas Plant. On-site we met General Manager Bernadette Mauthner and got a tour through the plant areal and enjoyed the detailed explanation of the operation process. On a last stop, the class had the chance to climb up a windturbine and enjoy the view from up there. The windturbine was the exact same one, which was the pioneer project of Energiepark Bruck/Leitha in 2001, when the company was founded. Compared to today’s windturbines, it is relatively small, but still functions perfectly fine and enables visitors to go up, which was a highlight of the whole excursion day.
Back in Bruck/Leitha, the class enjoyed a joint dinner and had the chance to do a bit of networking with parts of the faculty team and our partner Energiepark Bruck/Leitha. The class is now looking forward to their next lecture module at the university.