Kolyma HPP: location, environmental conditions, economic importance. Kolyma hydroelectric power plant named after Yu. I. Frishter

To visit these places and consider such a machine is a great pleasure, but unusual difficulties on this way are awaiting, too Kolyma HPP is far away. Overcome five hundred kilometers from Magadan in the Far North is not an easy task.

General information

This hydroelectric power station belongs to PJSC "Kolymaenergo", which, in turn, is a subsidiary of JSC RusHydro. Kolyma HPP is unique in a variety of parameters. This is not just a huge and powerful structure.

It is unique because of the fact that Magadan Oblast is isolated from the rest of Russia's energy system in its energy system, and because this hydroelectric power plant supplies almost the entire required area with a capacity of 95% - it provides for itself. And the main uniqueness is its location. In the regions of permafrost, it is the first and so far the only one. Kolyma HPP has the highest dam, and the machine room is located underground. Among such projects, it is the most powerful.

History of creation

The idea of using the natural power of the Kolyma River flow was put forward by the geologist Voznesensky at the very beginning of the thirties. Several projects were even completed before the Great Patriotic War. Then the business did not have time to move forward. To generate electricity, local coal continued to be used here. The return to the projects of such an object as the Kolyma HPP, necessary to the region, came in the sixties, when the post-war devastation was overcome and the exploration of outer space was started. In June 1964, they made a topographic survey of the whole area, and in 1965 the Minister of Energy came here with a group of hydraulic engineers.

The results of this trip and served as a decision on the exploration work on the site of the future hydropower plant. At the same time, all this was done, and the Magadan Region accepted the first detachment of hydrotechnical prospectors. In December of the following year, the project was put into development, and in 1967 comprehensive studies began in the range. "Lengidroproekt" worked on the project, the thirteenth expedition of this institute explored on the site. In November 1969 began the existence of the organization of construction management "Kolymagasstroy" in the "Vilyuygesstroy." A few months later, the State Planning Committee of the USSR opened a title for works pre-construction. In a word, in 1970 the hydroelectric power station on the Kolyma River had already begun its existence - so far in the form of construction.

Start

In February 1970, the first train was delivered from Yakutia to the station's stake, and in March, construction equipment arrived. The distances there are such that two weeks on the road - this is normal, as far from everything in the world is Kolyma HPP. Natural conditions are also special - permafrost, Far North. People and equipment arrived not only from Yakutia, but also from Magadan: in the village of Uptar they were waiting for the transshipment base - the first construction site. First it was necessary to erect housing for workers, build roads and all other infrastructure. Many other hydropower stations allowed us to do without the hassle of such a plan, and the Kolyma hydropower plant had to go all the way from scratch. Here, not a dam and no tents were needed (the climate is not tent!), There were built trans-shipment bases, access roads, housing and social and cultural life.

So there was a settlement of hydro-builders Sinegorye with two-story houses from a bar, then from aluminum panels, beautiful and well-arranged, with a school, a kindergarten, shops and the house of culture. It must be remembered that the weather conditions here are very severe, and on the permafrost it is impossible to build houses on a foundation, and the buildings of any size are always built on piles. Summer is mild, sometimes hot, the upper layer of the earth thaws, the foundation floats. Well, in winter here it's minus sixty-two degrees Celsius - a normal temperature that does not rise for many weeks. The heating period in the regions of the Far North lasts at least two hundred and seventy days, often more. But the country really needed Kolyma HPP, its economic importance is enormous.

Basic facilities

In June 1974, the first bucket of earth was taken out. So the dam began to be erected. Kolyma HPP was built simultaneously with the settlements of hydro-builders for another two years, and, finally, in 1976 this building became the All-Union shock. Two and a half thousand of the best Komsomol collectives of the country came to Kolyma. In 1980, the river was blocked in the hydropower station, and soon the first hydroelectric unit was already tested. In total there are five of them, the latter was put into operation only in 1995. And in 2010 the hydroelectric power plant was named "Kolyma Hydroelectric Power Station named after Frishter Yu.I." - she was given the name of the first director and head of construction.

The design of the hydroelectric power plant is a powerful dam high-pressure hydroelectric power plant: a stone casting dam, an underground building with a water intake, a PTC with a switchgear (an industrial and technological complex with a closed distribution device), a spillway. Temporary and permanent underground structures here in huge numbers, their length is more than seven kilometers, and the volume of debris is 425,000 square meters. The guaranteed capacity of the HPP is 224 megawatts, and the installed capacity is 900, an average of 3.325 billion kilowatt hours of electricity are produced annually.

River

The hydroelectric power plant was built very far from the mouth - 1,854 km of Kolyma still flowing to the sea. Here were located the Great Kolyma rapids, which now the reservoir flooded. The valley of Kolyma in this place strongly narrows, a ravine with very steep slopes is formed. The current is strong, the volumes are colossal. Even when the summer and autumn floods are completed, the hydroelectric power station discharges the water level. In this way, the delivery on the river is prolonged. The hydroelectric power station will not be one - the Kolyma cascade of hydroelectric stations consists of two stations. This hydroelectric power station is the upper stage of the cascade. With the introduction of the Ust-Srednekansky it will be possible to completely regulate the navigation of the Kolyma, and the operating regimes of the Kolyma HPP will not have restrictions. Now it's not like that at all. Each discharge of water ends with a huge work to strengthen the shore and the bottom. All because discharges occur more often than it was calculated, the spillway works longer.

All hydroelectric power stations consist of dams and reservoirs. Here, from the river, only two things are required: one hundred percent guarantee of water supply all year round and good deviations. Hydraulic construction is usually located where the type of relief is canyon-like. Kolyma is such a river, and it is in the gorge that Kolyma HPP was built. Sinegorye - a settlement of power engineers - is only five hundred kilometers from Magadan. Probably, in the Big Land it's a bit - 3-4 hours by car. The North does not like it when people make plans for the time. Here you can and all thirty hours to go to the regional center, and even rejoice that quickly and without undesirable adventures. But if you go down directly along the Kolyma for two hundred kilometers, the second (and last) hydroelectric power station will enter the road - Ust-Srednekanskaya. Here, concrete and earth dams are also erected in the narrowest part of the valley.

Options

The Kolyma hydropower plant was built in two stages: first the galleries of the main and temporary dams, the spillways, the water intake and the tunnels of the waterways, part of the building of the PTC, the engine room for the three units, which were switched on the lower heads, and in the second stage the permanent main dam , A water intake with a spillway and a fully hydropower building. One hundred and thirty four and a half meters - the height of the dam at the maximum, that is, among the earth's bulk, it is the highest in the country. Its length is 683 meters, width - 15. On top and bottom are the persistent prisms made of stone granite outline, the anti-filtration core from the soil (sandy-loamy), the sand and gravel filters are located between the prismatic prisms and the core.

The spillway is almost adjacent to the building, it is made of concrete as a three-span spillway and streams, ending with springboards. Each thirteen-meter span is covered by a twenty-meter shutter. The gates are raised and lowered with winch, each of which can lift two hundred tons, two shutters per gate. Kolyma Reservoir (or the sea, as it is called local) is 6 kilometers wide and 148 long, its area is 441 square kilometers, the maximum depth is 120 meters. Filled with water since 1980, this process lasted for eight years. As always happens in the construction of a hydroelectric power station, a lot of farmland is flooded. Here, on Kolyma, it's deer pastures, not corn fields, of course. But all the buildings have been moved - they are expensive here. The sea people fell in love: they catch grayling, whitefish, lenca, burbot and many different other good fish.

More about the natural conditions

All-Union construction forced to master this absolutely uninhabited and isolated area from the whole world. Kolyma highway, which is the nearest road, is forty kilometers away, which is very much for the conditions of the Far North. The runoff near Kolyma, like all the northern rivers, is sharply uneven. The largest is in summer and autumn with two waves of high water - spring (peak in June) and rain (August and September). In a warm period, almost the entire run-off goes to 97 percent.

In winter, it, of course, practically vanishes: the river freezes at the very beginning of October, and opens closer towards the end of May, in this period the water consumption drops to 3 cubic meters per second. A long-term freeze-up - from 200 to 270 days a year. Winters are very cold, the amplitude of temperature fluctuations in the year is ninety-eight degrees! That is, in winter -62 (the minimum temperature), and in summer +36 (maximum). Winds are constantly blowing here, especially in winter they are strong, at minus sixty it makes the weather not just stiff, but almost unbearable. The region is also highly seismic - seven points (MSK-64 scale).

Sinegorye

Near the hydroelectric power station a settlement has grown up. His fate was not easy. When the station was still under construction, more than 17 thousand people lived here (we recall that the last - the fifth - the unit began operating in 1995), then for so many people there simply was not work. Sinegorye swiftly emptied, people dispersed to other places, to other construction sites or to the Big Land. At the moment, the whole population of Sinegorya does not exceed two thousand people. This is the personnel serving the hydroelectric power station, electric grid workers and state employees. Together with the population Sinegorye left and the provision of social benefits.

Everything began to fade quickly: health care, education, culture. Only the swimming pool is still working. The rest of the super-rich sports complex - almost no. The same situation is almost everywhere. But this region must be developed, not losing the already built one. How many houses in Sinegorje are now empty! They are all abandoned. There is not even a question of why to live here. Yes, the local bowels are overflowed with ores - iron and uranium, tin, platinum, gold ... Kolyma hydroelectric power station was built for this purpose - to develop deposits.

How it was done

When in the distant 30-ies the local treasures were explored, it became clear that roads and a powerful energy center are needed. Permafrost, hard climate made the work particularly time consuming and monstrously expensive. However, the matter moved forward. The most complicated studies and calculations were made when choosing the type of dam, the most optimal location for the alignment was found. A lot of preparatory work has been done, and now - he's standing, a beauty. Everything happened "strictly according to concepts," as people like to say in these parts. In this case, this concept - the terrorization. If this process is completed, then it leads to global restructuring on the planet, the appearance, ecology and climate change. Something similar was done at Kolyma HPP.

A powerful industrial zone was created, roads were built, and various industries were set up. Discovered and developed quarries to extract building materials: sand, stone, clay, gypsum. And how many columns of equipment came from the port of Magadan! The most powerful cars worked here - career BELAZ trucks, KrAZ trucks, KamAZ trucks, trailers with excavators, bulldozers, tractors. After all, it was necessary to bring everything literally, here the place is empty and wild, no small screw can be found, let alone multi-ton transformers and hydrogenerator turbines. Window glass, clothing, furniture, products and cranes - all this was delivered off-road and far away lands.

Feat

Kolyma, like a knife, cut through the ridge of Chersky, dividing it into two huge granite shoulders, which now had to be prepared - aligned and cleaned, because here, over time, a huge arch of a bulk dam lay. The industrial zone has already allowed production to be opened, and first of all reinforced concrete structures were needed. Excavators literally bite into the naked bottom of the river, where the place for the foundation of the dam was being prepared. Industrial alpinists worked, cleaning the walls of the alignment, went deep into the mountains, cutting out granite, brigades of sinkers. Meter per meter penetrated tunnels of waterways. In the same way, large rooms for mechanisms and aggregates of hydroelectric power stations pierced the rock.

The bulk dam is the only one in the world, because they do not know how to do this on permafrost. Continuous chain trucks were from Magadan, bringing in Sinegorye more than a thousand tons of cement only per day. It is in winter, in the most severe frosts that exist on the planet. In summer there are no roads here. Hence - through the snow drifts, overcoming the rivulets and streams, so fast that they can not really freeze at sixty degrees, conduct their trailer with heavy (more than 170 tons) and more often oversized cargo. On steep passes, on slippery descents. It was all for such a huge goal! It was a feat.