To visit these places and to consider such a colossus means to receive great pleasure, but they also expect extraordinary difficulties along this path, the Kolyma hydroelectric station is too far away. Overcoming 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. Kolymskaya hydroelectric station in many ways is unique. This is not just a huge and powerful building.
It is unique, first of all, because the Magadan region is isolated from the rest of the Russian energy system by its energy system, and also because it is this hydroelectric power station that provides almost the entire required area with power - 95% - independently. And the main uniqueness is its location. In the edges of permafrost, it is the first and so far the only one. The Kolyma hydroelectric station has the highest dam, and the engine room is located underground. Among such projects, it is the most powerful.
History of creation
Ideas about the use of the natural strength of the Kolyma river were put forward at the very beginning of the thirties of the last century by the geologist Voznesensky. Several projects were even completed before the start of World War II. Further, the business did not have time to advance. Local electricity continued to be used to generate electricity. The return to the projects of such an object needed by the region as the Kolyma Hydroelectric Power Station took place in the sixties, when the post-war devastation was overcome and space exploration began. In June 1964, they made a topographic survey of the entire area, and in 1965 the Minister of Energy arrived here with a group of hydraulic engineers.
The results of this trip served as the basis for the decision on prospecting work at the site of the site of the future hydroelectric power station. Then all this was done, and the Magadan region adopted the first detachment of hydraulic surveyors. In December of the following year, the project went into development, and in 1967, comprehensive research began at the site. The project "Lenhydroproject" worked on the spot explored the site of the thirteenth expedition of this institute. In November 1969, the construction management organization Kolymageshstroy began as part of Vilyuygesstroy. A few months later, the title was opened in the Gosplan of the USSR for works preceded by construction. In a word, in 1970 the hydroelectric power station on the Kolyma River already began to exist - so far in the form of a construction site.
Start
In February 1970, the first road train was sent from Yakutia to the station target, and in March construction equipment arrived. The distances there are such that two weeks on the road is normal, since the Kolymskaya hydroelectric station is far from everything in the world. Natural conditions are also special - permafrost, the Far North. People and equipment arrived not only from Yakutia, but also from Magadan: in the village of Uttar, a transshipment base was waiting for them - the first construction site. First, it was necessary to build housing for workers, build roads and the rest of the infrastructure. Many other hydroelectric power stations made it possible to do without the hassle of such a plan, and the Kolyma hydroelectric power station had to go all the way from scratch. There was no dam and no tents needed (the climate wasn’t tent!), Transshipment bases, access roads, housing and social welfare were built here.
So there was a village of hydroengineers Sinegorye with two-story houses made of timber, then made of aluminum panels, beautiful and comfortable, with a school, kindergarten, shops and a cultural center. It must be remembered that the weather conditions are very severe, and on permafrost it is impossible to build houses on the foundation, and buildings of any size are always built on piles. The summer is mild, sometimes hot, the upper layer of the earth melts, the foundation is floating. Well, in winter it is minus sixty-two degrees Celsius - normal temperature, not rising for many weeks. The heating period in the Far North lasts at least two hundred seventy days, often more. But the country really needed the Kolyma hydroelectric station, its economic importance is enormous.
Main facilities
In June 1974, the first bucket of land was removed. So the dam began to be built. The Kolyma Hydroelectric Power Station was being built at the same time as the hydro-engineering villages for another two years, and finally, in 1976, this construction 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 closed at the hydroelectric power station, and soon the first hydroelectric unit was already tested. There are five of them, the last was put into operation only in 1995. And in 2010, the hydroelectric power station became known as the Kolyma Hydroelectric Power Station named after Frishter Yu. I. - She was named after the first director and construction manager.
The design of a hydroelectric power station is a powerful high-pressure dam: a stone embankment dam, an underground building with a water intake, a PTK with a switchgear (industrial-technological complex with a distribution box), a spillway. There are a huge number of temporary and permanent underground structures here, their length is more than seven kilometers, and the volume of breakage is 425,000 square meters. The guaranteed capacity of hydroelectric power stations is 224 megawatts, and the installed capacity is 900, on average 3.325 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity are generated annually.
River
The hydroelectric power station was built very far from the mouth - 1854 kilometers of Kolyma still flow to the sea. There were located Large Kolyma rapids, which are now flooded by the reservoir. The Kolyma Valley in this place narrows significantly, a gorge with very steep slopes forms. The current is strong, the volumes pass enormous. Even when summer and autumn floods end, the hydroelectric power station discharges maintains the water level. Thus, the delivery of the river is extended. There will be more than one hydroelectric power station here - the Kolyma cascade of hydroelectric power stations consists of two stations. This hydroelectric power station is the upper stage of the cascade. With the commissioning of the Ust-Srednekanskaya, it will be possible to fully regulate the shipping of the Kolyma, and the operating modes of the Kolyma hydroelectric station will not be limited. Now completely different. Each discharge of water ends with tremendous work to strengthen the shore and bottom. This is because discharges occur more often than was calculated, the spillway works longer.
All hydroelectric power stations consist of dams and reservoirs. Here, the river requires only two things: a 100% guarantee of water availability year-round and good slopes. Hydro construction is usually located where the view is canyon-like. Kolyma is just such a river, and it is in the gorge that the Kolyma hydroelectric station was built. Sinegorye - a village of power engineers - is located only five hundred kilometers from Magadan. Probably, on the mainland this is not much - 3-4 hours by car. The North does not like it when people make a way for a while. Here you can go all the thirty hours to the regional center, and even rejoice that quickly and without unwanted adventures. But if you go down straight along Kolyma for two hundred kilometers, the second (and last) hydroelectric power station of the cascade - Ust-Srednekanskaya - will get in your way. Here, concrete and earthen dams are also erected in the narrowest place of the valley.
Parameters
The Kolyma hydroelectric power station was built in two stages: first, galleries of the main and temporary dams, spillways, a water intake and tunnels of water conduits, a part of the PTK building, a machine room for three units, which were turned on at low heads, were built from cement, and in the second stage, permanent main dam was built , a spillway with water and a completely hydroelectric building. One hundred thirty-four and a half meters is the height of the dam at the maximum, that is, among the soil bulk it is the highest in the country. Its length, if we count along the crest, is 683 meters, and its width is 15. Above and below there are thrust prisms made of stone granite outline, an anti-filtration core made of soil (sandy loamy loam), sand and gravel filters are located between the thrust prisms and the core.
The spillway is practically adjacent to the building, it is made of concrete as a three-spill overflow and rapid currents ending in springboards. Each thirteen-meter span is covered by a twenty-meter shutter. The shutters rise and lower with winches, each of which can raise two hundred tons, on each shutter there are two of them. The Kolyma reservoir (or the sea, as the locals call it) is 6 kilometers wide and 148 long, its area is 441 square kilometers, and the maximum depth is 120 meters. It has been filled with water since 1980, this process lasted for eight years. As always happens during the construction of hydropower plants, quite a lot of farmland has been flooded. Here, in Kolyma, these are deer pastures, not corn fields, of course. But all the buildings were moved - they are expensive here. People loved the sea: they catch grayling, whitefish, lenok, burbot and many other good fish in it.
More about natural conditions
All-Union construction forced to master this terrain completely uninhabited and isolated from the whole world. The Kolyma highway, which is the nearest road, is forty kilometers away, which is quite a lot for the conditions of the Far North. The runoff at Kolyma, like all northern rivers, is sharply uneven. The largest is summer and autumn, two flood waves - spring (peak in June) and rain (August and September). In the warm period, almost the entire stock passes through - up to 97 percent.
In winter, it, of course, practically disappears: the river freezes at the very beginning of October, and opens closer to the end of May, in this period the water flow drops to 3 cubic meters per second. And the freezing-up is long - from 200 to 270 days a year. Winters are very cold, the amplitude of temperature fluctuations in a year is ninety-eight degrees! That is, in winter -62 (minimum temperature), and in summer +36 (maximum). Here the winds constantly blow, especially in winter they are strong, at minus sixty this makes the weather not only harsh, but almost unbearable. The area is also highly seismic - seven points (MSK-64 scale).
Sinegorye
Near the hydroelectric power station the village grew. His fate was not easy. When the station was still under construction, more than 17 thousand people lived here (recall that the last - fifth - unit began to function in 1995), then there was simply no work for so many people. Sinegorye rapidly empty, people dispersed to other places, to other construction sites or to the mainland. At the moment, the entire population of Sinegorye does not exceed two thousand people. These are personnel serving the hydroelectric power station, employees of electric networks and state employees. Together with the population, Sinegorye also left the provision of social benefits.
Everything began to fade away quickly: healthcare, education, culture. Only the swimming pool is still operating. The rest of the super-rich sports complex is almost nonexistent. The same situation is almost everywhere. But this region must be developed, in no case without losing the already built. How many empty houses are now in Sinegorye! They are all abandoned. There is not even a question of why live here. Yes, the local subsoil is full of ores - iron and uranium, tin, platinum, gold ... The Kolyma hydroelectric station was built just for this purpose - to develop deposits.
How was this done
When in the distant 30s the local wealth was explored, it became clear that we needed roads and a powerful energy hub. Permafrost, harsh 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 place for the alignment was found. Enormous preparatory work has been done, and now - the hydroelectric station is standing, beautiful. Everything happened "strictly according to concepts," as they like to say in these parts. In this case, this concept is terrorism. If this process is completed, then it leads to global restructuring on the planet, changing appearance, ecology and climate. Something similar was done at the Kolyma hydroelectric station.
A powerful industrial zone was created, roads were laid, and various industries were established. They discovered and developed quarries to extract building materials: sand, stone, clay, gypsum. And how many columns of equipment came from the Magadan port! The most powerful cars worked here - mining BELAZs, KrAZs, KamAZs, trailers with excavators, bulldozers, tractors crawled here. After all, it was necessary to bring literally everything, the place here is empty and wild, you cannot find a small screw, much less multi-ton transformers and hydro-generator turbines. Window panes, clothes, furniture, food, and cranes — all this was delivered off-road and to distant lands.
Feat
Kolyma, like a knife, cut through the Chersky ridge, dividing it into two huge granite shoulders, which now needed to be prepared - aligned and cleaned, because it was here that a huge arc of the bulk dam laid over time. The industrial zone has already allowed the opening of production, and first of all, reinforced concrete structures were needed. Excavators literally gnawed at the bare bottom of the river, where the place was prepared for the foundation of the dam. Industrial climbers worked, cleaning the walls of the alignment, went deep into the mountains, cutting down granite, crews of drifters. Tunnel of water conduits made its way meter by meter. In the same way, huge rooms for the mechanisms and units of hydroelectric power stations were punched in the rock.
The bulk dam here is the only one in the world, because they do not yet know how to do it in permafrost. Trucks from Magadan came in a continuous chain, bringing to Sinegorye more than a thousand tons of cement only per day. This winter, in the most severe frosts that exist on the planet. There are no roads here in the summer. So - through the snow drifts, overcoming the streams and streams, so fast that they really can’t freeze at sixty degrees, drive your trailer with heavy (over 170 tons) and most often oversized loads. On steep passes, on slippery slopes. After all, it was all for the sake of such a huge goal! It was a feat.