The beginnings of Tiwag

An XXL power plant fed by the Tyrolean sea

The powerhouse in Jenbach is still standing today.(Bild: Archiv Jenbacher Museum)

The Tyrolean energy supplier Tiwag is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. How was the company founded? The answer leads to Lake Achensee and to a pioneering technical achievement that was unique in Austria at the time. 

The Achensee power plant is regarded as the first large-scale power plant of European format in Austria. It was built a hundred years ago and a separate company was founded for this purpose - Tiroler Wasserkraft AG, or Tiwag for short! The Jenbacher Museum took 100 years of Tiwag as an opportunity to shed light on this pioneering achievement using historical photos and documents.

As Tiwag writes in its chronicle, the power plant went into operation in 1927 after three years of construction. With an initial machine output of 40 megawatts, which was later doubled to almost 80 megawatts, the Achensee power plant was the largest storage power plant within the borders of the present-day republic for 20 years.

The first plans to use Lake Achensee for energy were drawn up as early as 1904. However, it was not until 1923 that the project really took off and was then implemented with the founding of Tiwag in 1924. According to the chronicle, a banking group provided 17 million Swiss francs for the construction. 

The exhibition in the Jenbach Museum will be opened on Saturday (April 27) as part of a barbecue. It starts at 10 am. The exhibition "100 years of Tiwag and the Achensee power plant" can be seen until October (Mon, Thu, Fri and Sat, 2-5pm).