Photovoltaikkraftwerk am Pitztaler Gletscher

Photovoltaic power plant at Pitztal Glacier, Austria. The highest photovoltaic power plant in Europe is situated at around 3 000 m in the middle of the ski area on the Pitztal Glacier and supplies the facilities of the ”Pitztaler Gletscherbahnen“ with electricity. To support the 3 504 PV‐modules a steel loading system consisting of 80 trestles and 73 steel frameworks with a span of 20 m each was developed especially for this purpose. In the rocky and hardly accessible terrain it was necessary to build a total of 188 small single foundations with micro pored piles in order to support the system. The complete plant planning of the steel construction was carried out on the basis of current aerial photo data (3D laser scan). The parts and machinery needed for the steel framework could only be transported to the construction site using the existing emergency path, which involves inclines of up to 30 %. Countless journeys with the glacier lift were needed in order to transport concrete, small parts and PV‐modules to their destination. The supporting structures for the PV‐modules were preassembled on the construction site, equipped with PV‐modules and moved accurate to the millimeter using an off‐road mobile crane. The whole project including the detailed planning was completed in a limited period of only eight months (February to September 2015).     

Stahlbautechnische Problemlösung bei einer Kurvenstütze einer Dreiseilbahn – Penkenbahn im Zillertal

Steeldesign for a tricable Ropewaytower with a horizontal inclination – Penkenbahn, Zillertal, Austria. When ropeway alignments incorporate curves, the rope is deflected in both the horizontal and vertical planes as the carriage passes over the respective section of the line. In the case of tricable (3S) ropeways with two track ropes along which the cabin travels and one haul rope, Doppelmayr developed a curve tower, where the rope saddles enable a horizontal and a vertical angular deflection of the haul rope as the carriage travels over the three‐dimensional curve – i. e. with curvature about two axes. This construction was implemented for the first time on the Penkenbahn in Mayrhofen, Zillertal (Austria).