The Company

Heidemann Wasserkraftanlagen (Heidemann Hydropower Plants) was founded by Mr. Tilman Heidemann who grew up in a small hydropower station in southern Germany and already then was fascinated by the almost everlasting motion of the turbines.
In the mid-eighties when hydropower regained its importance through the upcoming discussion about renewable energies in Europe, and especially in Germany, Mr. Heidemann, who until then had worked on small hydropower stations only occasionally, more or less just as hobby, decided to investigate on the chances of building up a small company especially for maintenance and repairs of small hydro plants.

After the Czernobyl desaster in 1986, of which Germany was directly affected, the discussion about renewable energies was also set forth by the government.

The result was that a new energy conservation bill was introduced, which meant that producers of renewable energy were to be supported by much better reimbursements for the produced energy, as well as by government support for future projects. The impact of these ameliorations on the demand on the hydropower market was immense and so finally in 1987 Mr.Heidemann, who in the mean time had completed his training as mechanical engineer, founded Heidemann Wasserkraftanlagen.
Soon it had to be realized that if the company wanted to participate in this large market they could not only offer repairs and maintenance but had to extend their range of capacities also to new equipment.

So in the years 1988 to 1991 Mr. Heidemann added a workshop for steel constructions to the existing mechanical workshop and started with the production of trash racks, trash rakes, sluice gates etc.

Until today a great variety of projects has been carried out, almost all of them are unique constructions because hardly ever one power station is similar to the other. Thanks to the small size and flexibility of the company, Heidemann Wasserkraftanlagen became a good address for exceptional constructions where other firms were either too expensive or had too long delivery times. (link Steel constructions) The only standardised products are three different versions of trash rakes that were developed from scratch on the drawing board, then built in prototypes and quite a few have now been in service for up to 16 years with excellent service reports.

In 1996 a partner was taken aboard: powerflow New Zealand.

Powerflow specialise in micro pelton systems and electronic load gavernors for stand alone systems.
Another important step for Heidemann Wasserkraftanlagen was made in 1988 when the Catholic Mission in Cameroon ordered a complete micro hydropower unit for a hospital in the north west of the Cameroon mountains.

The project included planning, design of weir, penstock, powerhouse and selection and delivery of the machine set up. (Micro Hydro Stations For Remote Areas ) The power station was put into service in April 1989 and has been working since then without serious failures.

Since 1990 the company participated in various plannings of small hydrostations in Cameroon, Uganda, South Africa, Israel, Australia and Pakistan.

Heidemann Wasserkraftanlagen is basically active in the range of 1 kW to 1 MW.