Our name on our test hall
Since the beginning of September, the listed high-voltage hall in Dresden-Übigau has carried the HIGHVOLT lettering on its roof. For us, this is more than a new logo: it is the visible sign of a story that began more than 120 years ago – and one we continue to write here every day.
A building that set standards
Anyone who sees the hall from the inside for the first time stops in their tracks. 55 metres long, 40 metres wide, 29 metres high: when architects Paul Michael and Paul Voges built it in the early 1950s, it was the largest monolithic industrial building in Europe. An assembly pit in the centre of the hall even extends the usable height to 34 metres – space that was needed to build and test systems for the highest voltages of their time. Among the workforce, it was long and affectionately known as the "Professor-Dr.-Stamm-Gedächtnishalle" – the Professor Dr. Stamm Memorial Hall. It was named after Hans Stamm, who headed the plant from 1946 to 1953 and later became rector of the Ilmenau College of Electrical Engineering. Today, the hall is a listed monument and a familiar landmark for many people driving past Dresden on the A4 motorway.
Three names, one legacy
Over the decades, three names have stood on the roof, each representing a chapter of the same story. In the 1960s, it bore the abbreviation TuR. The state-owned VEB Transformatoren- und Röntgenwerk (Transformer and X-Ray Works) continued the tradition of Koch & Sterzel, supplied high-voltage test systems to the Soviet Union, Asia and the Arab world, and won 34 gold medals at the Leipzig Trade Fair. After German reunification, Siemens took over the site. In 1992, Siemens invested around 2.2 million Deutschmarks in renovating the roof and, with its large letters, set a highly visible sign of Dresden's industrial new beginning. Without this commitment, the hall would not stand as it does today. In 1995, the high-voltage testing business was spun off as an independent company: HIGHVOLT. We have been working in this hall and on the neighbouring site ever since. The roof space remained assigned to Siemens under a long-term agreement. Now that this agreement has expired, the roof also shows who brings the hall to life.
What happens inside
Almost everyone in Dresden knows the hall, but few know what is created inside it. Here, we develop, build and test systems that put transformers, switchgear and high-voltage cables through their paces before they are connected to the grid. Around 95 per cent of them are exported. Wherever power grids are being built or modernised around the world, you will often find a system from our company. And our tradition of leading the way goes back a long time: in 1923, Europe's first 1 MV test transformer came from here, followed in 1990 by what was then the world's largest outdoor test system. In 2020, we delivered the world's most powerful resonant test system. Today, more than 320 of our mobile cable test systems are in use around the globe. With our measurement and monitoring technology for high- and medium-voltage cables, we are currently setting new standards so that faults are detected before entire regions are left without power. We have been part of the Reinhausen Group since 2002. With our new production site in Klipphausen and a significant expansion of our workforce, we are growing with a market driven worldwide by the energy transition.
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