Heavy blocks for the project’s new hydro-units were loaded on board a sea-river class vessel at a berth at the Sverdlovskaya Embankment in Saint Petersburg in an official ceremony held during the the 5th International Economic Forum.

These three new sets of large-sized equipment will be shipped by sea and river during the 2011 summer navigation season. Each set consists of a hydro-turbine wheel (weighing 145 tons, with a diameter of 6.84m), a generator center plate oil tank (weighing 21 tons, with a diameter of 6.1m) and a 13-ton rotor frame for an auxiliary generator, 6.09m in diameter. Shipment of the first lot of new equipment will take 35-40 days.

The vessel will sail through Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega. From there, it will travel by the Belomorsko-Baltiysky Channel to the White Sea, and then by the Northern Sea Route to the Yenisei Estuary. After that, the vessel will go up the Yenisei River to Krasnoyarsk. At the Krasnoyarsk River Port, the equipment will be re-loaded on a river barge that will run the canal-lift of the Krasnoyarskaya hydropower plant and will ship the cargo to a berth (transfer point) in the lower pool of the Mainskaya project (downstream on the Yenisei, 21.5km from the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant). At this point, the equipment will be re-loaded on a special vehicle that will deliver the hydropower unit blocks to a mounting site for Sayano-Shushenskaya.

The total length of the route will be 5900km. For more detailed information about the new equipment shipping procedure, please see the video at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyafSjXuSQ8.

RusHydro began implementing the second stage of Sayano-Shushenskaya reconstruction earlier this year. The company will install ten new hydro-power units. The four units that returned to operation in 2010 following repair will also be replaced with new units. The first unit (under station number 1) is planned for commissioning in December 2011. From 2012 three units will be commissioned each year, meaning that by 2014 the Sayano-Shushenskaya project will have been completely re-equipped with new and modern equipment designed to meet all reliability and safety requirements.

The reconstruction work is needed following an incident on 17 August 2009, when water flooded the machinery hall; the project’s power and auxiliary equipment were damaged and the frameworks of the machinery hall building collapsed. Seventy-five people were killed in the accident.




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Equipment shipping procedure