"White coal" is the term German technology pioneer Oskar v. Miller used to describe this unique renewable source of energy: hydropower. The Walchensee power station was built some 75 years ago in response to the electrification of Germany's industry and rail service. Thanks to Bavaria's favorable topography, hydropower still accounts for around 16 percent of this German state's total electricity generation. Germany-wide this environmentally-friendly form of energy production has a share of about four per cent of total electricity generation.

E.ON Wasserkraft is Germany's market leader in this sector. The Landshut-based enterprise operates a total of some 126 power stations in the north of Germany,

adjacent to the Weser, Eder and Leine rivers, and to the South, on the Inn, Isar, Lech and Main rivers. The stations have a total capacity of 2,943 MW and produce over 10 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per annum, which corresponds to the annual consumption of Berlin's population of 3 million.

Customer benefits

As one of our customers you can also benefit from this environmentally-friendly form of electricity generation. Our innovative range of electricity products, such as E.ON AquaPower gives you the opportunity to support the use of renewables.

Hydroelectric Power Plant Variants

There are three types of hydropower stations, which, working in concert, ensure a stable supply of energy: run-of-river power plants are used to cover demand for base-load electricity. Storage power stations are used flexibly depending on the amount of electricity fed into the live grid and the amount of energy used. Pumped storage power plants store electricity during periods of low demand by pumping water to an elevated reservoir lake. This makes hydroelectric power suitable for compensating for short-term fluctuation in the quantity of electric power fed into the public grid, above all from wind farms.