Sweden's state-owned multinational power utility Vattenfall has acquired a company developing a 400 MW pumped-storage plant in Germany's central state of Thuringia. The project company, WSK Puls GmbH, a subsidiary of the Austrian construction group Strabag SE, has been planning the Leutenberg/Probstzella pumped-storage scheme near Saalfeld, in the Thuringian Highlands, for around 10 years. Vattenfall will continue to develop it in the coming years, to assess the feasibility of proceeding with construction under existing conditions, the utility announced on 20 December. Vattenfall does not expect to make an investment decision on the plant before the end of this decade, it added. To date the project has gone through the regional planning procedure of the Thuringia state administration office as part of the previous planning. According to its design status in 2016, the project, which would be equipped with two reversible pump-turbines with a nominal installed capacity of around 400 MW, would have a full load operation of six hours providing storage capacity of 2400 MWh. The project would harness a nominal head of 264 m between a new upper reservoir near Schweinbach and a new lower basin near Unterloquitz. Both reservoirs would have useful capacities of 4.1 × 10~6 m~3. The upper basin with a surface area of around 40 ha would be impounded by a dam with a minimum height of 12 m and a maximum height of 41 m, and a crest length of about 1690 m. The lower basin, with a surface area of 30 ha, would be impounded by a dam with a height of 65 m and a crest length of 320 m. The upper basin will not have a natural inflow, while a small brook, which is a minor tributary to a small river, will flow through the lower basin. If implemented, the project will increase Thuringia's pumped-storage capacity from 1500 to 1900 MW.
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