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Customer application 31 August 2020

New Monitoring Technology at the Förmitztal Dam

To operate the Förmitztal dam, the Hof water authority measures a variety of water levels, including groundwater, seepage, inflows and outflows. The hydrostatic pressure that loads the dam is also monitored at various points to guarantee the safety of the structure. With help from WAGO, the water authority automated some of the monitoring levels as part of the modernization measures taken in 2013.

The Förmitztal dam, commissioned in 1978 and located in northeastern Bavaria, is one of 24 state-owned water reservoirs built starting in the 1950s to ensure sustainable water management. It consists of an auxiliary dam and a main dam, which have a total capacity of approximately 10.5 million cubic meters. The core structure is the earth-filled embankment dam – around 800 meters long, 30 meters high, and 8 meters wide at the dam crest – which includes a partly accessible inspection tunnel.

Advantages of the WAGO-I/O-SYSTEM 750:

Fine-grained modularity and fieldbus-independence
The XTR variant is also suited for use in extreme conditions
Powerful, flexible and reliable

Improving Low Water Levels on the Saale

The Förmitztal dam primarily functions to prevent low water levels on the Saale river, whose source lies only a few kilometers southwest of the dam near Zell at the foot of the Waldstein mountains. The river flows north towards the city of Hof, located around 18 kilometers from the dam. The Förmitz reservoir is supplied by a bypass from the Saale, the Förmitz watershed, and a tributary of the neighboring Lamitz river. The key control level for the Förmitztal dam is located in Hof. During periods of low precipitation, normally between July and September, discharge of at least one cubic meter per second must be ensured to control water pollution and ensure that the water level is high enough at the discharge point for the Hof wastewater treatment plant. Therefore, the water authority discharges approximately four million cubic meters of water annually.

Automated Level Measurement

In addition to preventing low water levels on the Saale, the dam also contributes to flood prevention. Since 1991, the water discharge has also been used for energy production following the installation of a turbine. On average, the dam generates around 400,000 kWh annually, which is equivalent to the annual consumption of 125 households. In addition, the water reservoir is also used for recreation – swimmers, boaters and divers enjoy the facility. Significant modifications were made to the measuring equipment in the main dam in 2014. “Up to this point, we measured the levels manually once a week. However, the measuring points were sometimes not accessible in winter, because they were either snowed in or frozen,” explains Matthias Sudholt, who monitors the technology at the dam with his colleagues. A fiber optic cable ring was installed alongside the dam in 2014. Since then, the WAGO-I/O-SYSTEM 750 has recorded the levels and transmitted them to the control center in the operating building of the dam. Here the data is administered and visualized on a panel. An additional expansion of the network is planned for the future.