120 years of high voltage at the Dresden

Although this sup­pli­er of high-volt­age test­ing and mea­sure­ment tech­nol­o­gy has only been called HIGHVOLT since 1995, the Rein­hausen Group mem­ber can look back on a much longer his­to­ry.


When the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of the world was still in its infan­cy, two friends Franz Josef Koch and Kurt August Sterzel found­ed the com­pa­ny „Koch & Sterzel Spezial­fab­rik wis­senschaftlich­er Appa­rate und Instru­mente oHg“ in Dres­den. With­in a decade, they devel­oped it into a lead­ing com­pa­ny for high-fre­quen­cy tech­nol­o­gy, test­ing sys­tems, mea­sur­ing trans­duc­ers and the con­struc­tion of X‑ray appa­ra­tus. After the Sec­ond World War, the VEB Trans­for­ma­toren- und Rönt­gen­werk Dres­den (TuR) was found­ed from the remains of the heav­i­ly destroyed pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties. The Koch & Sterzel prod­uct range was con­tin­ued, fur­ther devel­oped and adapt­ed to the new sci­en­tif­ic require­ments.

After the reuni­fi­ca­tion of East and West Ger­many, Siemens AG took over the busi­ness and, in 1995, found­ed the high-volt­age test­ing tech­nol­o­gy as a sep­a­rate com­pa­ny named HIGHVOLT. In the fol­low­ing years, numer­ous new devel­op­ments were cre­at­ed such as XXL reac­tor coils for test­ing extra-long cables, ful­ly auto­mat­ed test sys­tems for dis­tri­b­u­tion trans­form­ers, and com­plex mea­sure­ment tech­nol­o­gy. The com­pa­ny, which has been part of the Rein­hausen Group since 2002, con­tin­ues its con­tri­bu­tions to mak­ing the ener­gy sup­ply of tomor­row safe and sus­tain­able with its inno­va­tions and solu­tions in the field of high-volt­age test­ing tech­nol­o­gy.

Founddation of the Company „Koch & Sterzel“

 Foun­da­tion of the com­pa­ny “Koch & Sterzel Spezial­fab­rik wis­senschaftlich­er Appa­rate und Instru­mente oHg” in 1904 in Dresden’s old town with eight employ­ees.

Koch & Sterzel employs more than 200 peo­ple.

Due to growth, the com­pa­ny moves to a larg­er loca­tion.

AC-Cascade

In 1928, the world’s first 1 MV cas­cade is real­ized for the Dres­den Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty on the basis of three 333 kV trans­form­ers for the gen­er­a­tion of high alter­nat­ing volt­ages.

First 1‑MV-DC-Test System

Cut­ting-edge research: Atom­ic physi­cists and Nobel Prize win­ners George Hevesy and Niels Bohr can be seen at the world’s first 1‑MV high-volt­age sys­tem at the Insti­tute of The­o­ret­i­cal Physics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Copen­hagen, which feeds cyclotron mag­nets.

The com­pa­ny now employs 1,800 peo­ple.

Foun­da­tion of VEB Trans­for­ma­toren- und Rönt­gen­werk Dres­den (TuR).

Construction of the High-Voltage-Test Hall

Mea­sur­ing 55 x 40 x 29 meters, the high-volt­age test hall is the largest mono­lith­ic indus­tri­al build­ing in Europe at the time. The new hall makes it pos­si­ble to man­u­fac­ture and assem­ble high-volt­age test sys­tems more effi­cient­ly and to car­ry out final and accep­tance tests, even for the high­est volt­ages.

Most Powerful Test Transformer

At the Leipzig Spring Fair, TuR wins a gold medal for the most pow­er­ful test trans­former of its time, which then even adorns a postage stamp. It gen­er­ates a test volt­age of 1.2 MV and can be trans­port­ed by rail. A spe­cial fea­ture at the time: the bush­ings come from the com­pa­ny HSP in Cologne, Ger­many —a non-social­ist for­eign coun­try.

Siemens AG takes over the trans­form­ers, high-volt­age sys­tems and med­ical tech­nol­o­gy divi­sions.

Foun­da­tion of HIGHVOLT Prüftech­nik Dres­den GmbH.

Resonance Test System for 400 KV Extruded Cables

From the 1990s onwards, advances in cable tech­nol­o­gy make it pos­si­ble to trans­mit ever high­er volt­ages. HIGHVOLT’s work is instru­men­tal in estab­lish­ing res­o­nance test­ing of these cables as a glob­al­ly accept­ed stan­dard tech­nol­o­gy. For the first time, HIGHVOLT also devel­ops a mobile sys­tem for the on-site test­ing of cable sys­tems.

HIGHVOLT becomes a mem­ber of the Rein­hausen Group.

Ready for the Future

In the three decades of its exis­tence, HIGHVOLT has set new stan­dards with numer­ous inno­va­tions. The prod­ucts of the Dres­den-based com­pa­ny are more in demand than ever in view of the grow­ing glob­al demand for ener­gy. In order to meet the grow­ing demand for mod­ern high-volt­age test­ing tech­nol­o­gy, a new pro­duc­tion site was opened in Klip­phausen in August 2024.


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