28.07.2016 | A compliment for Axpo employees

Thanks for the flowers!

It’s nice to hear public praise for Axpo employees. For example when a letter to the editor compliments “our” work as in the one recently published in the „Sarganserländer“ newspaper. 

The Gigerwald Reservoir is located at the back in the Calfeisen Valley at the northern base of the Ringelspitz (the highest peak in the Canton of St. Gallen at 3247 above sea level). The reservoir is contained on two sides by, rugged, steep limestone walls nearly 2000 metres in height. To the west it is bordered by the idyllic summer Walser settlement St. Martin, and to the east by the nearly 150-metre high dam.

This narrative is about the meadows along the road that leads to the Restaurant Gigerwald, to the lake and on to St. Martin. The meadows are cared for by employees of Kraftwerke Sarganslerland AG (KSL), an Axpo subsidiary. During summer, mowing the meadows is part of their work.

Turk’s cap lily & Co.

Let’s just let Antonia Kressig and Heidi Compagnoni from the town of Mels have their say. Every summer they hike up to St. Martin from the Gigerwald dam. In a letter recently published in the „Sarganserländer“ newspaper they write: „There is a great deal of diverse, unique flora growing along this route. We’ve never seen so many Turk’s cap lilies anywhere else. We would like to thank the KSL (Axpo) employees Markus and Berni Kohler, and Gregor and Thomas Zimmermann for the great care they take every year when mowing the grass while preserving so many special flowers. They are true nature enthusiasts. Until next year.“

Lovely Turk’s cap lily. Photo: Thomas Zimmermann

Thomas Zimmerman, Deputy Team Head (Plant Maintenance) matter-of-factly comments the compliment saying one just has to pay attention „and mow around the flowers.” Besides, he “likes the floral splendour too” (see photo series).

So we say bravo and thanks for the flowers – for those in the meadows and the compliment in the letter …

The Gigerwald and Mapragg reservoirs

Axpo owns 98.5 per cent of Kraftwerke Sarganserland AG (KSL). KSL operates the Gigerwald and Mapragg reservoirs along with the Mapragg and Sarelli power plants. The facility can be used as a pumped storage plant (370 MW turbine capacity/159 MW pump capacity) and on the 10-year average it generates 464.6 million kWh of electricity. In order to produce peak energy, water from the Mapragg reservoir can be pumped water back into the Gigerwald reservoir. The Mapragg machine group is often used to provide ancillary services for the high voltage grid.

The Mapragg and Sarelli power plants use the water inflows from an area of about 160 km2 in the Weisstannen and Calfeisen valleys. The Gigerwald dam is a double arch dam (maximum height above the foundation: 147 metres; crown length: 430 metres; minimum wall thickness at the crown: 7 metres; maximum wall thickness at the base: 22 metres).

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