Power Plant Lippendorf

Structural planning for the new building of the double-block-unit

The power plant Lippendorf belongs to the most state-of-the-art facilities for the conversion of lignite to electricity worldwide. The double-block-unit has a net output of approx. 1.800 MW and is operated jointly by Vattenfall Europe Generation AG (formerly VEAG) and EnBW. The power plant located about 15 km south of Leipzig is further equipped with a heat extraction that provides district heating for the city. This way the power plant’s effectiveness is over 46%.

Due to its location in sight of the city of Leipzig a focus during planning was on aesthetic industrial design with corresponding demands on structural planning. All in all 2.3 bn euro have been invested in this project.

ZPP or the predecessor company has been commissioned by the then VEAG with structural planning of the overall facility in the service phases 2-5 (pre-planning, draft planning, approval planning and execution planning) according to HOAI (Official Scale of Fees for Services by Architects and Engineers) except for steel construction for the boiler and the two 175 m high cooling towers. Furthermore, we provided consulting services and support for the site management for the client.

Especially the ground conditions with setting projections of up to 20 cm and the resulting continuous base plate below the unit buildings with dimensions of approx. 110 x 130 m and a maximum thickness of 5,5 m (> 35.000 m³) proved to be a special technical challenge.

Further characteristics were the 176 m high staircase towers of the boiler houses executed in pairs in travelling formwork technique which have been effected by crosswinds in the construction stage, the coal bunker built using the travelling form work method and taking into consideration loads resulting from the world’s largest crossing crawler crane (lifting capacity approx. 1.600 t).

Our services encompassed not only the new building of the power plant complex but also the new building of the so-called “Infrastrukturzeile” consisting of administration, information centre, canteen, apprenticeship and workshop building.