GORNO-ALTAISK, August 10 (Itar-Tass) —— Khakassia’s Head Viktor Zimin said the delivery of the first shipment of large-size equipment from St. Petersburg to the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant was a unique operation.
“The forecasts we have made in terms of Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant restoration by 2014 are coming true by the day,” Zimin said on Wednesday, August 10.
On Tuesday, August 9, a river barge brought three new units for the power plant. The first rotor was delivered by road on Tuesday evening. It took almost five hours to travel the 21-kilometre way.
The second shipment of equipment was scheduled to be transported on Wednesday evening and the next one on Thursday morning.
The first three sets of equipment made by Silovye Mashiny (Power Machines) in St. Petersburg are transported by the only possible way – by sea and river during the period of the summer navigation.
The new units will operate for 40 years with an efficiency coefficient of 96.6 percent.
Ten new units will be installed in the turbine room of the plant. The first of them is to be commissioned in December 2011, with the remaining ones to go on line in 2012-2014.
The rated capacity of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant is 6,400 megawatts.
An accident at the power plant on August 17, 2009 claimed 75 lives and destroyed or seriously damaged the plant’s equipment. Three of its ten units were destroyed and six damaged. Only unit No. 6, which was in reserve at that time, remained virtually intact.
In 2009, an 11.7-billion-rouble contract was signed with Silovye Mashiny for the supply of new equipment to the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant to replace all units by 2014. The plant is scheduled to become operational after the replacement of all units in 2014 as well.
RusHydro said its losses from the halt of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant would be smaller than was initially projected. Preliminary estimates announced at the end of August 2009 named about 16.5 billion roubles in losses till 2013.
According to the latest estimates, losses have been decreased from 1.5 billion roubles a month to one billion roubles a month or may be less.
But despite the accident and the generation shortfall of over 6,000 megawatt, RusHydro said it “is performing all of its contractual obligations regarding electricity supplies and gives up none of its commitments”.
Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said earlier that RusHydro might issue new shares in 2010 in order to raise funds for the reconstruction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant.
The main source of funding for the reconstruction of the power plant in 2010 is the company’s own capital.
The Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant is located in Khakassia on the river Yenisei, 180 kilometres from Abakan and is the biggest hydropower plant in Russia. Its dam is 242 metres high and 1,066 kilometres long. Its rated capacity is 6,700 megawatts. The last unit was commissioned in 1978. The power plant generated about 24 billion kilowatts/hour annually.
RusHydro is Russia’s largest electricity generation company and the second-largest hydropower company in the world in terms of installed capacity. Its aggregate installed capacity of 23.7 gigawatts.