From a Nazi bunker to an energy station

Electricity and heat instead of anti-aircraft batteries. An abandoned Nazi bunker in Hamburg has been turned into an energy station.

A unique example of reconstruction with a device was demonstrated by engineers of the German company IBA Hamburg. They transformed the grandiose bunker of the Second World War into a heat and power plant that provides energy to the neighboring residential area.

(10 photos in total)

1. The construction of a huge reinforced concrete bunker, which concurrently served as an anti-aircraft tower of the Luftwaffe, began in the Hamburg district of Wilhelmsburg in 1943 and was completed a year later. Flakturm VI, belonging to the second generation of such anti-aircraft systems, is an eight-storey structure measuring 57 × 57 meters and 42 meters high. The thickness of the concrete walls of the structure is 2 meters at the base, the floors are 3.5 meters.

2. In 2011, IBA Hamburg specialists presented a reconstruction project for a building that had not been used for 65 years. Two years later, an object called the "Energy Bunker" was put into operation. A steel frame was mounted on its southern wall, on which dozens of photovoltaic batteries and solar thermal collectors were installed with a total area of 3,500 sq. m.

3. Several boiler houses running on renewable fuels and a giant fresh water storage tank with a capacity of 2 million liters were placed inside the structure. Boiler houses will use biomethane and wood waste as power sources.

4. It is planned that the thermal and electrical energy generated by the former Nazi bunker will be used to supply the nearby residential area. According to the authors of the project, this energy will be enough to provide electricity to thousands and heating of three thousand apartments.

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6. In addition, in one of the towers where anti-aircraft guns were placed during the Second World War, a cafe with an observation deck and a small museum dedicated to the history of this curious example of fortification were opened.

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