Dam construction

The pumped storage power plant of Goldisthal was erected in the valley of the Schwarza river between Goldisthal and Scheibe-Alsbach in Thuringia. It has been in operation since 2003 and it is one of the largest and most up-to-date power plants of its kind throughout Europe, due to a capacity of 1,060 megawatts (MW). The underground hydroelectric power station is operated by hydraulic power.

Bickhardt Bau, in cooperation with a consortium, was entrusted with the construction of the main dam and the auxiliary dam. 700,000 cubic metres of soil and rock masses were installed in a professional manner above the municipality of Goldisthal for the main dam. The 67-metre high rockfill dam was erected with a water-side asphalt seal and an inclination of the embankment slope of 1:1.6. The lower storage reservoir with a length of 2400 metres and a width of up to 900 metres has a maximum storage capacity of 18 million cubic metres of water. The auxiliary dam was provided with an asphalt concrete core seal. 160,000 cubic metres of soil were required for heaping up the embankment.

Main dam:

700,000 m³ of embankment were heaped up
15,000 m² of water-side asphalt seal

Auxiliary dam:

160,000 m³ of embankment were heaped up
1,080 m³ of asphalt concrete core seal

The Leibis -Lichte dam is an important element of the drinking water supply in the Free State of Thuringia. More than 400,000 people get their drinking water by means of a long-distance water supply network from the dam reservoir with a capacity of almost 40 million cubic metres. A 372-metre long concrete dam wall ensures the necessary water storage capacities. Bickhardt Bau, in cooperation with a consortium, was involved in the construction of this huge civil engineering structure. The dam wall was made of altogether 1246 concrete blocks and has a volume of 620,000 cubic metres. It has a height of 93.5 metres above the valley bottom (102.5 metres above the foundation bottom), a dam base width of 80.6 metres and it tapers with an inclination of 1:0.78 to a width of 9 metres at the crown. 

A mobile mixing plant for the mass concrete was erected close to the construction site. In this way, a constant supply of concrete was ensured, in spite of the huge demand. It should be noted that 2000 tonnes of concrete were installed each day. Two cable cranes transported the building material in 6-cubic metre buckets to the place of installation afterwards. The construction of the dam was started in autumn 2000. The concreting work was finished almost five years later.

Concrete construction:

620,000 m³ of concrete