Nazi Bunker to Become Europe's Largest Solar Power Plant

[Locutus]

A former Nazi bunker located in the Wilhelmsburg district of Hamburg, Germany is about to get a full-scale makeover. The building, which sorta looks like a giant LEGO, is set to become Europe's largest renewable energy power plant.

When it's all said and done, the power plant will supply 3,000 homes with heating and 1,000 of those with electricity, cutting 6,600 tons of CO2 per year.

How? The nine story structure (called a Flaktürme in German) will boast a 110 kWh rooftop photovoltaic system and a south-facing 0.6 GWh solar-thermal unit come 2012. The building's interior is being reserved for even further expansion. By 2013 the structure will house a 10.5 GWh woodchip combined heat and power plant (CHP), and a 3.7 GWh biomethane plant powered by a nearby industrial plant, for example. Waste heat will also be stored. That sounds like a lot but this building could house around 80 single family homes. It is that big.

more tree hugging here:


Nazi Bunker to Become Europe's Largest Solar Power Plant : TreeHugger

 

[Bar Sinister]

Actually it is a flak tower (which is what Flaktürme means), not a bunker. The circular structures on the tower contained antiaircraft batteries. They were intended to survive the heaviest bombing which obviously this one did. Due to their massive construction and huge size they also made very good bomb shelters, but that was not their intended function. It is interesting that this might be the only good thing to ever come out of the Third Reich.