Hydro power plants
Hydraulic power plants (HPP) in Russia come up to 25 % of the general installed capacity of energy power system and generate up to 20 % of electric power. Giant electric power plants of the several gigawatt capacity (in Siberia) and relatively small (of several megawatt capacity) are popular, including in Karelia and in the North Caucasus.
Twenty-year break (1985-2005) in investment activity of Russian energy power engineering had a direct impact on the HPP designing and construction field, as well as on power plant engineering. Some major projects which started in the USSR were frozen. There were practically no new HPP designing. For obvious reasons, development of world hydraulic power engineering during those years poorly affected Russia where human sources accrued during Soviet years were only spent during this break.
This industry had to be practically recreated in the mid 2000th after large-scale investments in Russian hydraulic power engineering. Foreign engineering companies and manufacturers of equipment for HPP became active participators of this process, as they have accumulated a great experience in HPP construction projects and pumped-storage HPP in Europe, China, South America, etc. Limited directional characteristics in the development of Russian hydraulic power engineering set half a century ago told on it: in the USSR since 1960 only high capacity HPP were designed and constructed (unit capacity about 10 MW and more). As a result, in Russia there was no experience of equipment designing and manufacturing in relation to small HPP which under certain conditions are more profitable and don’t require flooding of huge area. To solve this problem, the largest Russian generating companies working in the field of hydraulic power engineering, establish joint ventures with European equipment manufacturers, try to adjust their base projects to Russian conditions.
Since 2007, EF-TEK experts actively participated in the processes described above, providing engineering services within concepts and business plans elaboration for HPP construction, due diligence of already constructed/designed stations, expertise of tender procedures related to hydropower equipment, etc. Our team has a working experience with projects in hydraulic power engineering in Russia (Siberia, the North Caucuses), Tajikistan, Georgia and Turkey. We are well familiar with HPP design and construction experience in Germany and other European countries, and we are always ready to use accrued experience in the interests of our clients.