Stairs. Entry group. Materials. Doors. Locks. Design

The Sayano-Shushensky hydropower complex is located on the Yenisei River in the southeast of the Republic of Khakassia in the Sayan Canyon at the river’s exit into the Minusinsk Basin. The complex includes the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station and the counter-regulating Mainsky hydroelectric complex located downstream.
The Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station became the top in the cascade of Yenisei hydroelectric power stations and one of the largest in the world: installed capacity - 6.4 million kW and average annual production - 22.8 billion kWh of electricity.
The pressure front of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is formed by a unique concrete arch-gravity dam with a height of 245 m, a length along the crest of 1074.4 m, a width at the base of 105.7 m and a width at the crest of 25 m. In plan, the dam in the upper 80-meter part is designed in the form of a circular arch , having top edge the radius is 600 m and the central angle is 102°, and in the lower part the dam consists of three-centered arches, and the central section with a coverage angle of 37° is formed by arches similar to the upper ones.
The stability of the dam under water pressure (about 30 million tons) is ensured not only by its own weight (60%), but also by the emphasis on the banks (40%). The dam is cut into the healthy rock of the left and right banks, respectively, to a depth of 15 m and 10 m. The dam is connected to the base in the riverbed by cutting into the solid rock to a depth of 5 m. This design of the dam allowed for 2 million m3 (about 10 million were laid). m3) reduce the volume of concrete masonry compared to a gravity-type dam.
The dam is delineated along a pressure face with a radius of 600 m.
According to the conditions of concreting and monolithization of the dam body, its mass is divided into sections by radial seams, and in cross section on the pillars. The arch-gravity dam consists of a spillway, station and blind coastal parts. The energy of the waste stream is extinguished in a water well.
In the body of the dam along the upper edge there are longitudinal galleries used for monitoring the condition of the dam, placing control and measuring equipment, collecting and discharging drainage water, and performing cementation works. repair work.
In total, the dam contains 10 galleries at height.
The lower cementation-drainage section, 3.5 m wide, is 15 m away from the pressure face. The gallery has slopes from the ends towards section 36, where pumping stations are located for its drainage.
Gallery No. 2 with a width of 3.5 m and a vault height of 3.0 m with a floor elevation of 332.3 m is located above the maximum elevation of the tailwater and is used to drain drainage water from the body of the dam by gravity.
Gallery No. 3 with floor mark 344.15 is intended for control and measurement observations of the condition of the dam. Adjacent to the gallery in a number of sections along their axes are transverse galleries used for installing the KIA.
The remaining longitudinal galleries (Nos. 4-10) measuring 3.0x3.0 m are located in height at 27.0 m.
The spillway part of the dam is located on the right bank, its length is 189.6 m, it consists of 12 sections. The spillway has 11 holes, which are designed to pass 13,600 m3/sec. The holes are buried 61 m below the NPU (normal retaining level). The cross-section of the water pipelines at the inlet is 6x8 m, at the outlet 7x5. The water pipelines are equipped with main and repair gates. Four-meter springboards complete the spillways; at the exit from them, the water speed reaches 55 m/sec.
The energy of idle discharges is extinguished in the water well. In the well, the flow loses a significant part of its energy. Behind the water wall, the flow speed is 6 m/sec. Behind the water wall, the river bottom is secured with concrete slabs over a length of 60 m. To drain the water well, a pumping station is located in a separate abutment. Performance of each of the three installed pumps 1200 m3/hour. Well draining time is 55 hours.
The station part of the dam is located on the left bank of the river bed and consists of 21 sections (16-36) with total length 331.6 m. From the downstream side, the hydroelectric power station building adjoins it, the adjoining zone ends with a transformer site at elevation. 333 m.
The blind coastal parts of the dam connect the dam with the banks. The blind left-bank part has a ridge length of 252.8 m and consists of 16 sections (0-15), the right bank is 300.2 m and consists of 19 sections (49-67).

Section and plan:

Photos of the dam from different angles:

Brief history of construction:
1966
In September, section No. 4 of the Sayangesstroy construction department was organized in the village of Cheryomushki, headed by engineer Viktor Usachev.
1968
The former head of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station of the Krasnoyarskgesstroy management was appointed
On September 12, in the Karlovsky site of the construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, the filling of the lintels of the first stage foundation pit began.
1969
On October 1, the management of the main construction facilities of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was organized. V. M. Evgrafov was appointed its chief, and Anatoly Pavlovich Dolmatov was appointed chief engineer.
1970
The lintels of the pit of the first stage of construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP have been filled.
On October 17, the first cubic meter of concrete was laid into the main structures of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP.
1972
On December 26, during the construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, the first cubic meter of concrete was laid in the spillway part of the dam.
Alexander Georgievich Brusset, who soon became the chief engineer, was appointed deputy chief engineer for the construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP.
1975
The former head of the construction of the Charvak hydroelectric power station in Uzbekistan, Stanislav Ivanovich Sadovsky, has been appointed head of the Sayangesstroy construction department.
The Leningrad initiative on creative scientific and technical cooperation for the accelerated creation of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was supported by 43 enterprises and organizations Krasnoyarsk Territory. A regional coordinating council of the creative community has been created.
On October 11, the Yenisei riverbed was blocked for 3.5 hours at the Karlovsky site for the construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station.
On November 6, the working village of Oznachennye was renamed the city of Sayanogorsk.
1976
By order of the USSR Ministry of Energy and Electrification, the Sayangesstroy construction department was reorganized into the Krasnoyarskgesstroy construction department, with its relocation from Divnogorsk to the village of Maina, and then to the village of Cheryomushki.
On August 31, the first million cubic meters of concrete were laid into the dam of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station.
1978
On March 27, the construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station was visited by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, Alexey Nikolaevich Kosygin.
On October 12, the third million cubic meters of concrete were laid into the dam of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station.
On December 18, the first hydraulic unit of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was put under industrial load.
On May 23, the raging flood broke into the building of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station and flooded the first starting hydraulic unit.
All efforts were devoted to eliminating the accident, and on July 4, the flooded unit, having undergone a complete technical audit, was reintroduced into the Siberian energy system.
On August 20, the fourth million cubic meters of concrete were laid into the dam of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station.
On November 5, the second hydraulic unit of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was put into operation, like the first, with a replaceable impeller.
On December 21, the third hydraulic unit of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP with a permanent impeller was connected to the Siberian energy system.
1980
On July 3, the fifth million cubic meters of concrete were laid into the main structures of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station.
On October 29, the birthday of the Komsomol, the fourth hydraulic unit was put under industrial load. As an object of special care, it received the name "Komsomolsky". The Divnogorsk tradition was repeated in the Sayan Mountains.
On December 21, the fifth unit of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station became operational.
1981
On November 6, the sixth hydraulic unit of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was put under industrial load ahead of schedule.
1982
During the construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, the 60th meeting of the CMEA Standing Commission on Cooperation in the Field of Electricity was held, which was attended by the energy ministers of all socialist countries. The meeting was chaired by the Minister of Energy and Electrification of the USSR P.S. Unempty.
1983
On November 25, Mikhail Poltoran’s integrated team for managing the main structures of the construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was the first in the history of Krasnoyarskgesstroy to achieve the millionth record of laying concrete in the dam.
1984
On July 29, the eighth million cubic meters of concrete were laid into the dam of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station.
On September 5, the seventh, and on October 11, the eighth hydraulic units of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP were put into operation.
In connection with the appointment of S.I. Sadovsky, the first deputy minister of energy and electrification of the USSR, Alexander Vasilyevich Volynsky, became the head of the construction department of Krasnoyarskgesstroy.
On November 5, the second brigade of the management of the main structures of the construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, Mikhail Mashchenko, brought the count to a million cubic meters of concrete laid in the hydroelectric dam since the creation of the brigade.
1985
When a flood with a flow rate of 4,500 cubic meters of water per second passed through the open spillways of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station dam, serious damage to the water well occurred.
The construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station was visited by the Minister of Energy and Electrification of the USSR Anatoly Ivanovich Mayorets.
On December 21, the ninth, and on December 25, the tenth and last electric power plant came into operation at the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, and the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP surpassed all hydroelectric power stations on the Asian-European continent in its capacity. Its installed capacity is 6.4 million kilowatts!
1986
On July 2, the last, ninth million cubic meters of concrete were laid into the main structures of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station.
1987
On June 12, the first two units of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP were reconstructed, where temporary impellers were replaced with standard, permanent ones.
1988
On February 11, the Council of Ministers of the USSR issued an order and instructed the Minister of Energy and Electrification of the USSR to ensure the completion of construction and installation work and the commissioning of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower complex in two stages: the first in 1988 - the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station with a reservoir, auxiliary and production facilities, residential buildings and social, cultural and community facilities in the village of Cheryomushki; the second in 1990 - Mainskaya HPP with the rest of the complex.
On March 31, the first power unit of Berezovskaya State District Power Plant-1 of KATEK was put into operation, where the Krasnoyarskgesstroy team, on a subcontract basis, erected all hydraulic structures and blocked the river and filled the reservoir. Work at the Berezovskaya GRES was led by S.I. Burkov.
For the first time in domestic practice, the State Commission for acceptance into commercial operation of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP formed an environmental section.
When a flood with a flow rate of 4,400 cubic meters of water per second passed through the open spillways of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, the fastening of the water well was again destroyed, which caused concern about the further operation of the project spillways.
1990
On September 25, by agreement with the Tuva Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the reservoir of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station was filled for the first time to 540 meters of the normal retaining level (NPL).
1993
April 20 registered Joint-Stock Company open type"Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP". In September, all the property of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP passed into the full and undivided ownership of RAO UES of Russia.
2002
The technical and economic indicators of the holding company Krasnoyarskgesstroy and its subsidiaries have improved. Labor productivity increased by 30 percent. The average salary for the holding was 4872 rubles, and for the SUOS company - 6580 rubles.
Construction and installation work was carried out mainly by two subsidiaries: the limited liability company "SUOS" and the enterprise "Sayanenergostroy".
June 10 marked the 25th anniversary of the commissioning of the Krasnoyarskgesstroy gravel screening plant. The employees of this enterprise made a great contribution to the construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station dam, the construction of houses and social and cultural facilities in the city of Sayanogorsk and the village of Cheryomushki. The large group of the Sayanenergostroy enterprise, as the legal successor of the State Sanitary Plant, received a letter of gratitude from the general director of the holding.
2005 year
On March 18, construction of a coastal spillway for a hydroelectric station began on the right bank of the Sayano-Shushenskoye reservoir. The goal of the project is to finally transform the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station into the safest hydroelectric power station in Russia.

And photos

And here is the overlap of the Yenisei:

And of course I would like to mention the hydraulic units of hydroelectric power stations
The Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP has 10 hydroelectric units with a capacity of 640 MW each. The spillway dam has 11 spillway openings, the thresholds of the water intakes of which are buried 61 m from the FPU.
The largest enterprise in Leningrad - the electrical machine-building enterprise (LPEO) "Elektrosila" (chief designer A.A. Dukshtau) created a hydrogenerator with a nominal power of 640 thousand kW for the SShHPP. rated voltage 15750 V with a rotation speed of 142.8 rpm.
Hydrogenerators are of an umbrella type with a thrust bearing on the turbine cover with one guide bearing in the center of the upper crosspiece.
On the same shaft with the generator there is an auxiliary excitation generator and a tachogenerator for powering the electrohydraulic turbine speed controller.
The generator has a system of in-line water cooling of the stator winding and forced air cooling of the rotor winding. To cool the stator winding, distilled water is used, circulating in the hollow winding rods.
Circulation occurs in a closed cycle and is ensured by powerful circulation pumps.
total generator weight - 1860 tons,
maximum installation -890 t.
outer diameter of the stator is 14800 mm.
Unlike previously implemented hydrogenerator designs, the stator core was assembled using a weldless method at the installation site in the crater of the unit. The stator winding was also laid there. The weldless assembly of the stator reduces vibration, eliminates the possibility of damage to the stator iron at the junction of the gears during operation, and increases the strength of the stator. In general, the reliability and durability of the hydrogenerator increases.
The hydraulic generator's thrust bearing is double-row, designed to withstand a load of 36,000 kN. It is placed in an all-welded oil bath with a diameter of 6 m.
The generator bearing is babbitt, with self-aligning segments operating on self-lubrication.
The unit is braked by piston pneumatic brakes.
Hydraulic turbines of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP of the radial-axial type RO-230/833-0-677 are designed to operate in the range from 175 to 220 m.

And here are the generators and turbine impellers themselves:

This is the delivery route for turbine impellers from Leningrad

Generator

And its installation.
Then

And now

Installation of outdoor switchgear

Here's the story

Materials taken from

Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station named after. P.S. Neporozhniy is the most powerful power plant in Russia, the sixth most powerful hydroelectric power station in the world. Located on the Yenisei River, in the village of Cheryomushki (Khakassia), near Sayanogorsk. The beginning of the biography of the Sayano-Shushensky hydropower complex can be considered November 4, 1961, when the first team of prospectors from the Lenhydroproekt Institute arrived in the mining village of Maina. In the winter of the same year, a survey of 3 competing sites was carried out. In July 1962, an expert commission headed by Academician A.A. Belyakov, was able to choose the final option based on the survey materials - the Karlovsky site.

20 km downstream, it was planned to build a satellite of the Sayano-Shushenskaya - counter-regulating Mainskaya hydroelectric station.
September 12, 1968 - filling of the lintels of the first stage pit began at the Karlovsky site.

The project of the unique arch-gravity dam of the SSh HPP was developed by the Leningrad branch of the Gidroproekt Institute. The creation of a dam of this type in the conditions of a wide section of the Yenisei and the harsh climate of Siberia had no analogues in the world

More than two hundred organizations contributed to the construction of the energy giant on the Yenisei and will forever remain components of the history of its creation, but the first place among them is, of course, occupied by the multi-thousand-strong KrasnoyarskGESstroy

October 17, 1970 - the first cubic meter of concrete was laid into the main structures of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station.

On October 11, 1975, the whole country watched the duel between builders and the mighty Yenisei.
Here are the words from a telegram from the secretary of the board of the Union of Writers of the USSR Sergei Sartakov: “...The hero Yenisei, who awakened the Sayan Range, will... serve man in the hope, however, that man will treat him according to his dignity...”

1978 - construction of the counter-regulatory Mainskaya hydroelectric power station began.

This is really cool!

Year after year, construction became more and more “Komsomol”

and increasingly all-Russian.

December 18, 1978 - the first hydraulic unit of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was put under industrial load.

On May 23, the raging flood broke into the building of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station and flooded the first starting hydraulic unit.
All efforts were devoted to eliminating the accident, and on July 4, the flooded unit, having undergone a complete technical audit, was reintroduced into the Siberian energy system.

In the foreground is the GA-2 spiral chamber

November 5, 1979 - the second hydraulic unit of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was put into operation - like the first, with a replaceable impeller.

All the unique equipment of the SSh HPP was manufactured by domestic factories: hydraulic turbines - by the Leningradsky Turbine Manufacturing Association metal plant", hydrogenerators - by the Leningrad Electrical Engineering Production Association "Electrosila", transformers - by the production association "Zaporozhtransformator".

On December 21, 1979, the third hydraulic unit of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP with a permanent impeller was connected to the Siberian energy system.

The turbine runners were delivered to the upper reaches of the Yenisei by a waterway almost ten thousand kilometers long, across the Arctic Ocean.

October 29, 1980 - the fourth “Komsomolsk” hydraulic unit was put under industrial load

In the summer of 1979, student construction teams with a total number of 1,700 people took part in the construction of the largest hydroelectric power station

in 1980 - more than 1,300 people from all over the country.

In 1985, when a flood with a flow rate of 4,500 cubic meters of water per second passed through the open spillways of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station dam, serious damage to the water well occurred.

And on December 25, 1985, the tenth and last electric hero, and the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station surpassed all hydroelectric power stations on the Asian-European continent in its power. Its installed capacity is 6.4 million kilowatts!

On July 2, 1986, the last, ninth million cubic meters of concrete were laid into the main structures of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station.

On June 12, 1987, the first two units of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP were reconstructed, where temporary impellers were replaced with regular, permanent ones.

1988 - construction of the hydroelectric power station is largely completed.

When a flood with a flow rate of 4,400 cubic meters of water per second passed through the open spillways of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, the fastening of the water well was again destroyed, which caused concern about the further operation of the project spillways.

Water well after the 1988 flood

September 25, 1990 - the reservoir of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station was filled for the first time to the design mark of 540 meters of the normal retaining level.

1993 - OJSC Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was created.

In September, all the property of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP passed into the full and undivided ownership of RAO UES of Russia.

In 2005, construction began on the coastal spillway of the hydroelectric power station, the commissioning of which will increase the reliability and safety of the operation of the power plant (the standard spillway turned out to be poorly designed - the destruction of the water well was repeatedly noted).

In the same 2005, OJSC Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP became part of OJSC HydroOGK

Station:
1. Right bank blind part of the dam
2. Spillway part
3. Water well
4. Station dam
5. Left bank remote part
6. Securing potentially unstable coastal masses
7. Machine room
Coastal spillway under construction:
8. Gravity tunnels
9. Mating section

Until recently, hydroelectric power plants were the most safe source electricity, not a single major accident at a hydroelectric power station has occurred in the world. True, the construction of such stations is almost always associated with colossal environmental and social costs, but this still seemed less evil than environmental pollution from emissions from thermal power plants or the explosion of a nuclear power plant reactor, which after Chernobyl no longer seems impossible.

The hydroelectric power station has a number undeniable advantages: this is both the renewable energy source and the absence of everything related to the extraction, transportation and preparation of fuel, and waste disposal. In addition, hydroelectric power is the cheapest - and the cheaper the larger the station. If the cost of a kilowatt-hour generated at the Upper Volga cascade (Rybinsk hydroelectric power station with a capacity of 110 MW and Uglich hydroelectric power station - 40 MW) is taken as 100 units, then the corresponding figure for the SShHPP (6400 MW) will be only 21.5, while for the largest thermal Perm hydroelectric power station ( 2400 MW) - 149.

But on the morning of August 17, 2009, all illusions regarding the safety of hydroelectric power plants dissipated like smoke - a hydraulic unit weighing nearly two thousand tons flew out like a cork from a bottle, the complete destruction of the turbine hall, and dozens of dead. The most important thing: after such an accident, it no longer seems impossible to break through the dam, below which on the Yenisei there are large cities - Sayanogorsk, Abakan, almost a million Krasnoyarsk, the secret “nuclear center” Zheleznogorsk (formerly Krasnoyarsk-26) with a population of one hundred thousand and operating nuclear reactors, warehouses and repositories of radioactive materials...

On November 13, 2009, an open letter from residents of Khakassia and the Krasnoyarsk Territory to the president and prime minister appeared in the Krasnoyarsk Worker newspaper. “We are all very concerned about the condition of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station dam, and not only in connection with the accident on August 17 of this year. Much of what we knew at the level of rumors is confirmed by the conclusions of authoritative scientists and specialists... Addressing you, dear Dmitry Anatolyevich and Vladimir Vladimirovich, we ask for the safety of hundreds of thousands human lives make a decision on the complete release of the Sayano-Shushenskoye reservoir and the closure of the Sayano-Shushenskoye hydroelectric power station.”

Having been burned by milk, people tend to blow on the water. But are their fears groundless and what is actually happening with the SSHHPP dam?

Great Leap

The press now writes a lot about the weak points of the dam, the imperfections of its design, and the mistakes of designers and builders. Valentin Anatolyevich Stafievsky, who held the position of first deputy chief engineer and then chief engineer of the station from 1983 to 2005, suggests proceeding from the fact that new things are inevitably associated with risk: “We must understand that neither in the world, much less in ours The state did not have sufficient experience in designing such dams.” True, in the case of Sayano-Shushenskaya, he assesses this risk as excessive: “...the standards for designing such a powerful station - 640 MW units at once at such high pressures - have been preserved from the old ones, from the experience of operating flat stations. An experiment was practically carried out.” This kind of large-scale, high-risk experiments was common practice in the USSR. Glorified by Soviet poets, composers and artists, the Bratsk hydroelectric power station with its 124-meter dam was also unique for its time. In addition, the rush caused by the desire to complete construction by November 7, 1967 - the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution - greatly affected the quality of the structures. As a result, operators still have problems with the dam to this day and constantly. The lessons of the Bratsk hydroelectric power station were taken into account in the design and construction of the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station, the dam of which has the same height.

But, unlike the Sayano-Shushenskaya, the dams of both of these stations were unique precisely because of their height, and in design they belonged to the well-studied gravity dams, that is, straight, heavy, bottom-supported dams that are installed on lowland rivers. In order to build a similar dam of twice the height, as planned in the case of the SSHPP, a colossal amount of concrete would have to be laid. Therefore, a more economical design that has no analogues in the world was chosen: arch-gravity. This made it possible to reduce the volume concrete works by about a quarter.

The arched structure has the remarkable property that the material in it does not bend, as in flat floor, and for compression, which fragile materials - concrete, stone, brick - withstand much better. An arched dam is essentially the same arch, only not vertical, but placed on its side with a convex towards the reservoir and resting on high rocky banks. They take a significant part of the load. The most stressed areas are the places where the arch is embedded in the shore, so the SSHHPP dam on the left and right is cut into the rock to a depth of 15 and 10 meters, respectively.

Arch dams are usually built in a narrow canyon, but here the distance is more than a kilometer, so the designers of Sayano-Shushenskaya decided to play it safe and make the dam partly gravitational, that is, to lay such a base area and such a weight that concrete wall“held” not only to the shores, but also to the rocky bottom, into which the structure was buried five meters. It was smooth on paper - as Valentin Bryzgalov, general director of the SSHPP from 1977 to 2001, writes in his book: “Construction experience for a relatively a short time“10-15 years of high gravity dams (100-125 meters) of the Bratsk, Krasnoyarsk and Ust-Ilimsk hydroelectric power stations was regarded as complete readiness for the construction of a fundamentally different dam design, moreover, twice the height.” Time has shown that the assessment was erroneous: at SShHPP, already with the launch of the first unit, everything went wrong.

Accident after accident

At the end of 1978, on an unfinished dam, in the absence of any means of releasing water in case of unforeseen circumstances, the first hydropower unit was urgently put into operation (in order to meet December 6, Brezhnev’s birthday). Bryzgalov, who, like any real engineer, hated storming, writes about this: “It was assumed that by the time the unit was launched in 1978, 1,592 thousand cubic meters would be placed in the dam. m, actually (laid - editor's note) - 1200 thousand cubic meters. m". As a result, the station was not ready for the flood of 1979 (the largest during the entire operation of the dam). The flood simply overflowed the edge of the dam, and on May 23, 1979, the first unit and the turbine hall were flooded.

The next major accident happened six years later, and it was associated with errors in the design of the spillway system of the SSHHPP. This system does not work in winter, when there is little water - all the water goes to the turbines through 10 water pipelines of the station part of the dam. But in other seasons their capacity is not enough, so the valves of 11 wells in the spillway section are opened. Through them, water flows into a common tray, shaped like a springboard, and then into the so-called water well located at the base of the dam. The well, especially during a flood, must withstand monstrous loads - as if a standard panel house were falling into it from a 250-meter height every second.

And when a big flood happened in 1985, the water destroyed up to 80% of the bottom of the well: concrete plates The stream, two meters thick, threw out like foam cubes, and the anchor bolts with a diameter of 50 millimeters that attached them to the rocky base tore like threads. The same accident, but on a slightly smaller scale, occurred again in 1988.

Operators were forced to limit the capacity of drainage wells. However, there are only two ways for water flow - either through the spillway or through the turbines of hydraulic units. But the operation of the latter in the maximum flow mode (that is, the maximum generated power) is impossible in practice - it may turn out that there is simply nowhere to put the energy.

Thus, in the first half of the 1990s, the capacity of the then power lines was not enough, and the station on average produced only half of its rated power. Due to the clearly insufficient capacity of the dam's spillways, the discharge of extreme (with a probability of once in 100 years) or even simply incorrectly predicted floods is practically impossible - the dam will be overwhelmed, as it was in 1979. Note that the dam is not designed to handle the entire flood. Its normal operation involves a preventive decrease in the reservoir level in the winter-spring period. But you can’t reduce it too much - in summer there may not be enough water, and the pressure will be lower than optimal for turbine operation.

The issue of building an additional coastal spillway, not provided for by the project, has been discussed for a long time, but the start of work was constantly postponed. Mainly due to the exorbitant cost of the facility - 5.5 billion rubles, which exceeds the annual revenue from the operation of the SSHHPP, which amounted to 3.9 billion in the most productive year of 2006, and is equal to approximately a third of the cost of the entire station. But in 2005, construction began, first of all with throughput 4000 m3/s is planned to be completed by June 2010, that is, by the period of maximum filling of the reservoir. Considering that the discharge of water through the turbine conduits became impossible after the accident, this is more than timely. In other words, the discharge problem will be solved one way or another by the summer of 2010, but the condition of the dam itself is of great concern.

Separation from the bottom

Back in the 1980s, deep cracks appeared in the body of the dam, some from bank to bank, and its base moved away from the bottom of the channel (experts call this “opening of the dam-rock foundation joint”). And, most unpleasantly, there were clear signs of what Doctor of Technical Sciences Vladimir Tetelmin calls “the dam sliding down.”

The cracks responsible for the seepage of water through the dam (this is called filtration), which in some periods reached 500 liters per second and led to the erosion of concrete, arose not only due to design errors, but also due to violations of construction technology. Bryzgalov notes in his book that “the concreting of the fourth (lower) pillar was completed late; for a long time the pressure was absorbed by a thinner dam, unfinished in profile.” By the mid-1990s, at least they learned to deal with cracks with the help of the French company Solétanche Bachy, which developed a technology for filling cavities polymer composition, but the process itself did not stop: “In channel sections,” Tetelmin writes, “the opening of injected cracks increases. The cementation performed compressed the defective area of ​​the first column, filled voids and cracks, but did not stop the cracking process.”

The main thing is that it is impossible to restore the strength of adhesion of the dam to the base. Without going into details, we note that the dam is currently “holding” to the bottom of a maximum of a third of its foundation. In fact, it ceased to be arch-gravitational and became purely arched, that is, “hanging”, leaning on the banks. At the same time, the dam swings, that is, when the reservoir level rises, it tilts downstream, and when it decreases, it flows back. But not completely, but every year, as Tetelmin claims, “it slides more and more toward the downstream by 1-2 mm.” This displacement, measured along the dam crest, has now amounted to 100 millimeters or more in some areas. The trouble is that it is different in different sections, which is why, according to the same Tetelmin, “monstrous internal tensions” arose in the body of the dam.

The troubles of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station dam

Four main defects of a dam

The vagaries of the earth's crust

Another group of problems is related to the reaction of breeds and earth's crust in the area of ​​the station under the pressure of colossal masses of water and concrete. SSHHPP was designed for magnitude 6-7 earthquakes. In 1988, after Spitak, the seismic stability of the dam was calculated anew. They showed that she is not afraid of an 8-magnitude earthquake. The likelihood of such an event is difficult to assess. There is an opinion that pressure provokes earthquakes, but there is also evidence that it actually helps relieve stress in the earth’s crust and thereby prevents a catastrophic earthquake from developing. Small ones happen all the time in the dam area.

But Tetelmin is much more concerned about other processes occurring in the earth’s crust than earthquakes. “In the area of ​​the reservoir, under the influence of load, it slowly sinks into the viscous substance of the underlying mantle... At the periphery of these processes, a compensatory rise of the earth’s crust occurs. Approximate calculations show that over the years of operation, the “arrow of deflection” of the thickness of the earth’s crust in the area of ​​the dam site is about 30 cm.” To this we must add the fact that “the array of crystalline shales, under the influence of a shear load of almost 18 million tons transmitted from the dam, experiences irreversible plastic deformations.”

Evils of the system

Today, the condition of the dam is the main concern of both the operators and residents of the cities downstream of the Yenisei. But it has only an indirect relation to the accident that happened on August 17. Yes, it is likely that the displacement of the dam affected the vibration level of the 2nd unit, as Tetelmin claims. But even without this, the catastrophe would hardly have been avoided.

On August 17 at 00:20 (hereinafter local time), a fire broke out at the control panel of the Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station, which disabled the communication system. At 00:31, the dispatcher of the operational dispatch control (ODC) of Siberia, instead of the Bratsk one, appointed the Sayano-Shushenskaya station as the main one in the power control system of the Siberian energy system and transferred it to automatic control (although the Bratsk hydroelectric station was working properly, due to the lack of communication, the operator did not know this) .

Until the morning, SSHHPP worked, continuously changing power due mainly to the second unit. Let us explain that the station’s hydraulic units can operate in different modes, and only two are stable: I - at low output power and III - near the nominal one. Intermediate mode II is considered abnormal, since it is associated with powerful pulsations of the water jet entering the turbine blades. It is especially dangerous when the frequency of these pulsations coincides with the beating frequency of the main shaft of the unit (and such beatings are always present due to play in the places where it is attached) and resonance occurs. The instructions instruct zone II to “pass quickly,” but not a word is said about how long the unit can remain in it.

The second unit, which already had increased vibration of the main shaft, passed through danger zone II six times on the night of August 17. As a result, immediately before the accident, the vibration amplitude at the control point increased in 13 minutes from 0.6 to 0.84 millimeters, with the maximum permissible level of 0.16 millimeters (that is, the excess was more than five times). And with the next reduction in power and entering zone II (at 8:13), such vibration destroyed the hydraulic unit’s mounting points - under the pressure of a 212-meter column of water, this 1,800-ton colossus was thrown more than 10 meters.

Of course, the staff was obliged, having detected such strong vibration, to stop the 2nd unit. However, it is possible that he simply did not know anything about it: the continuous vibration monitoring system, installed only in 2009, was not fully put into operation - the sensor readings were only stored for history, as in the “black box” of the aircraft. Another flaw in the station’s control system was that there was no provision for automatic emergency closing of the gates on the crest of the dam, through which water enters the turbine conduits. It was only possible to manually close the shutters completely at 9:30. That is, for almost an hour and a half, water continued to pour into the destroyed turbine room, flooding its lower floors, where at the time of the accident almost the entire morning shift of the station was located.

As a result, 75 people were killed, the turbine hall was destroyed, and out of 10 units, only two did not require major repairs or complete replacement, the oil slick stretched along the Yenisei for 130 kilometers, which, among other things, caused problems with the water supply to many settlements. The list of troubles goes on and on. This winter, for the first time, water from the reservoir has to be released through an open spillway, rather than through closed conduits leading to the turbines. The TV program “Vesti” showed impressive footage: repairmen with all their might are struggling with the ice that is continuously growing on all surfaces of the dam due to the water-ice fog hanging in the air. The “Act of Technical Investigation” and other sources allow us to conclude: both the deplorable state of the dam and the increased vibrations of the 2nd unit are a consequence of the same defect - storming committed during the design and construction. “From my point of view,” says Stafievsky, “many problems could be avoided very simply: install one turbine. Conduct tests. Identify all weak points. And as with us - ten at once. Today we are stepping on this rake again and concluding an agreement for all the cars (ordered to replace the destroyed ones. - Ed.).”

The blame for the accident lies with everyone. And the “lower ranks” - those who installed and launched the unfinished automated control system, and the operators who, on the night before the accident, overloaded the problematic unit No. 2. And the middle level - the managers of hydroelectric power plants, who did not insist on the timely launch of the automated control system and the replacement of outdated equipment. And especially on the “generals” - starting with the USSR Minister of Energy Pyotr Neporozhny, who sanctioned the assault during the design and construction, and ending with Anatoly Chubais, who, together with 38 other members of the commission, signed an order to commission the problematic station. Note that among these 38 there is one academician and three corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. On what basis is the faith of the citizens who sent the letter to Krasnoyarsk Worker, in “the conclusions of authoritative scientists and specialists” based, is not clear...

What to do?

It is clear that no one will close the station. No matter how great the destruction is, within six months it will be possible to start up three out of ten hydroelectric generators. By summer, after the coastal spillway is put into operation, the load on the dam will decrease. Full recovery the station will require several years and more than 40 billion rubles (which, at least in part, will be compensated by the population forced to pay for electricity at increased tariffs), but lowering the dam and dismantling the station with subsequent land reclamation is unlikely to result in lower costs. In addition, the resulting shortage of electricity (before the accident, the SSHPP provided more than 10% of the needs of Siberian enterprises) will have to be covered by coal power plants, which means that an extra 6.5 million tons of coal will have to be burned annually with all the ensuing consequences for the environment. Suffice it to say that about a ton of mercury alone will be released into the environment per year: such an amount is capable of poisoning the volume of three Sayano-Shushensk reservoirs.

But still, these troubles are nothing compared to the dam breaking. And since they are not going to close the station, we need to somehow protect citizens in a different way. The Ministry of Emergency Situations distributed a leaflet to social institutions in Khakassia describing a possible disaster scenario and a plan for evacuation of the population. (It is significant that in March 2008, an exercise was held at the Abakan Thermal Power Plant simulating the situation of a breakthrough of the Sayano-Shushenskaya dam.) It says that in the event of a breakthrough, the height of the water shaft directly at the dam will exceed 50 meters. In 10 minutes it will reach the Mainskaya hydroelectric station and completely destroy it, and after 20 - Sayanogorsk, which will go under water. The flooding of Abakan will begin in 5-6 hours. In 17 years, the level of the Yenisei in the area of ​​this city will rise by 30 meters.

According to some calculations, if the wave reaches the Krasnoyarsk reservoir, its level will rise by 10 meters, the water will overflow the dam of the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station and disable it. There will also be flooding of certain areas of Krasnoyarsk and a number of downstream settlements. The most pessimistic scenario is the complete destruction of the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station dam. Then a serious threat will loom even over the “nuclear center” of Zheleznogorsk, located 64 kilometers from Krasnoyarsk.

And yet, most experts agree that if the condition of the dam is continuously monitored, it can be operated for a long time. But monitoring alone cannot provide a complete guarantee. “There was always a solution: simply lower the level of the reservoir,” notes Stafievsky. We took this path in 1997. Then it was decided to lower the maximum operating level by one meter compared to the design level, as a result of which a significant reduction in the intensity of irreversible processes in the body of the dam and in the surrounding areas was expected. But this did not happen. Now Tetelmin proposes to sacrifice part of the power of the hydroelectric power station and radically reduce it by 10 meters as much as possible permissible level reservoirs. Then the dam can be safely operated for another 100 years. But everything, most likely, will come down to ordinary human greed - after all, a decrease in the level means a decrease in the generated power, and there will always be specialists who are ready to sign anything for the sake of momentary benefit, their own or the state’s - it doesn’t matter.

Stafievsky recalls that at one of the meetings on the development of energy in Siberia, Chairman of the USSR Government Alexei Kosygin (who made timid attempts to at least somehow reform the Soviet economy) said: “We must make decisions so that descendants do not spit on our graves.” In the conditions of victorious capitalism, this idea still remains relevant.

The capacity of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station is the largest in Russia. She is also the sixth largest in the world. The Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station is located in Khakassia, on the Yenisei River, not far from Sayanogorsk.

Composition of station structures

The main object of the station is an arched gravity dam made of concrete, which has a height of 245 meters and a length of 1066 meters. The width of the dam at the base is 110 meters, and at the crest 25 meters. The dam can be divided into four parts. The left-bank and right-bank blind parts are 246 m and 298 m long, respectively, the drainage part is 190 meters long, and the station part is 332 meters long.

Adjacent to the dam is the hydroelectric power station building near the dam.

Tourism

The station itself and its turbine hall are interesting as tourist sites. The power plant also has its own museum. Since the site is sensitive, it can only be visited through regional tour operators.

The area where the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station is located (the map is located below) is a place that has gained popularity among tourists. Previously, there was even a special Observation deck, from which one could best see the station. Now in this place, next to the dam, a memorial dedicated to the builders of the hydroelectric power station has been erected. On the banks of the Yenisei rises the five-domed peak Borus, which is considered a national shrine among the Khakassians, as is the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station. The map of Khakassia allows you to better find out where these places are located.

The observation deck on the left bank allows you to see a white rock two hundred meters high. It represents part of the Kibik-Kordon marble deposit, which occupies several kilometers of the Yenisei bank. One of the parts of the road leading from Sayanogorsk to Cheryomushki lies directly along the marble deposit. Its construction was hampered by difficult geological conditions and rocky spurs, which made its construction one of the most expensive in the world.

Construction

The final decision to begin construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station was made in 1962. Construction began in 1968. In 1975, during the construction of a hydroelectric power station, the bed of the Yenisei River was blocked, and already in 1978, with the launch of the first hydraulic unit, the station produced its first current. From 1979 to 1985, nine more hydraulic units were launched successively. In 1988, construction of the station was largely completed. In 2005, work began on the construction of a coastal spillway, which should increase the reliability of the station. In 2011, the spillway was put into operation.

Exploitation

In 2006, serious deficiencies were discovered in the plant's turbine room and drainage well. In 2007, a routine inspection revealed significant wear and tear on the booms, which were 20 years old. The design of the hydraulic units with which the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was equipped turned out to be not very successful, prone to increased formation of cracks. Photos published after the accident made it possible to judge the extent of their destruction.

A large program of modernization and technical re-equipment of the station was developed, the implementation of which began, but the accident at the power plant made adjustments to the plans of the builders.

Accident

The Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, the accident at which occurred on August 17, 2009, caused great destruction.

In the morning in August 2009, an accident occurred at the hydroelectric power station. The second hydraulic unit was destroyed and the turbine room was flooded big amount water. The 7th and 9th hydraulic units were severely damaged, the third, fourth and fifth hydraulic units were covered with debris. This led to the destruction of the turbine hall from which the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station was controlled. The accident resulted in the death of 75 people.

The tragedy was thoroughly investigated. The investigation report was published in October 2009.

Recovery

New hydraulic units to replace the damaged ones were ordered to the Power Machines enterprise. Already in 2010, units No. 6, No. 5, No. 4 and No. 3 were in operation, which made it possible to increase the power of the station to 2560 MW - 40% of the nominal one. In parallel, work was carried out on the dismantling of unit No. 2 and the construction of a coastal spillway, which ended with successful hydraulic tests. The station generated 10 billion kWh of electricity.

Thus, the first stage of reconstruction was completed, as a result of which four hydraulic units of the station, which suffered the least damage, were put into operation.

In 2011, the second stage of reconstruction began. The construction of the second stage of the spillway was completed, and by the end of the year the entire spillway complex was put into operation.

In addition, a new hydraulic unit (No. 1) was put into operation.

Electricity generation in 2011 amounted to more than 18 billion kWh.
In 2012, three new hydroelectric units were launched: No. 7, No. 8, No. 9, after which the capacity of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP amounted to 3840 MW.

In 2013, three new hydraulic units were launched: No. 10, No. 6, No. 5, which made it possible to increase the station’s capacity to 4,480 MW.

In 2013, the station produced more than 24 billion kWh.

In 2014, the third stage of station reconstruction began. As part of its implementation, in 2014, hydraulic unit No. 4 produced current.

At the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, a complete re-equipment was carried out with new hydraulic units of OJSC Power Machines, which have best parameters and meet stringent safety and reliability requirements. The capacity of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station became equal to the nominal - 6400 MW. The maximum efficiency of the new hydraulic turbines reached 96.6%, and the maximum service life of the machines was increased to 40 years. Now the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, the photos of which immediately after the accident and today are strikingly different, is operating at full capacity.

For me, hydroelectric power stations are something from the “Wonders of the World” series. When I look at them, I realize that people are the same amazing creatures, like ants with their epic structures, cities and tunnels.

The Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is the most powerful power plant in Russia, the 13th among currently operating hydroelectric power plants in the world. It is located in the Sayan Mountains, right on the border between the Krasnoyarsk Territory and Khakassia - the border runs along the Yenisei River, on which a hydroelectric power station was built. Workers of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station live in the village of Cheryomushki, not far from the village of Shushenskoye, known as the place of Lenin’s exile.

The height of the dam is 242 m (one of the highest in the world), the length along the crest is 1074 m, the width at the base is 105 m. The dam is not monolithic design, but consists of columns (67 rows along and 4 rows across the dam), connected by special temperature-shrinkable seams. This was done for durability, because there are too large temperature changes in these parts of Siberia.

Construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station began in 1963 and was officially completed only in 2000.

On the night of my arrival at Sayano-Shushenskaya there was an earthquake of about 3 points. Neither I nor the hydroelectric power station noticed him. These structures are built in such a way that they should not be affected by earthquakes up to magnitude 8.

The Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP produces very cheap electricity (the cost of 1 kWh of electricity from the Sayano-Shushensk hydropower complex in 2001 was 1.62 kopecks).

The finished energy goes from here to the Unified Energy System of Russia and to the Sayan territorial production complex (large aluminum smelters, Abakanvagonmash, coal mines, iron mines, etc.).

Equipment cabinets inside the hydroelectric power station run on Windows.

Flowers in memory of those killed during the accident on Sayano-Shushenskaya, which occurred in 2009. After the accident at the hydroelectric power station there was no outflow of personnel; on the contrary, patriotism worked in people - they only increased their efforts in work, trying to quickly restore the consequences of the destruction.

The accident began with this unit (No. 2) on August 17, 2009. An excerpt from the memoirs of an eyewitness to the accident, Oleg Myakishev. Read it…:

“I stood at the top, heard some kind of growing noise, then saw the corrugated covering of the hydraulic unit rise and stand on end. Then I saw the rotor rising from under it. He was spinning. My eyes didn't believe it. He rose three meters. Stones and pieces of reinforcement flew, we began to dodge them... The corrugated sheet was already somewhere under the roof, and the roof itself was blown apart... I figured: the water was rising, 380 cubic meters per second, and - I was heading towards the tenth unit. I thought I wouldn’t have time, I rose higher, stopped, looked down - I saw how everything was collapsing, the water was rising, people were trying to swim... I thought that the gates needed to be closed urgently, manually, to stop the water. Manually, because there is no voltage, no protections worked..."

At the time of the accident, of course, the power supply to the hydroelectric power station was lost and the gates could only be closed manually, for which the personnel had to enter a special room on the crest of the dam. At about 8:30, eight people reached the gates, after which they contacted the station shift supervisor Nefyodov by cell phone, who gave instructions to lower the gates. Having broken open the iron door, station workers A. Kataytsev, R. Gafiulin, E. Kondrattsev, I. Bagautdinov, P. Mayoroshin, A. Ivashkin, A. Chesnokov and N. Tretyakov within an hour manually reset the emergency repair gates of the water intakes, stopping the flow water into the machine room. By 13:07, all 11 gates of the spillway dam were open, and water began to flow idle.

It is now 2015 and no traces of the accident are visible to the naked eye. There was complete chaos in this room. The accident was the largest in the history of Russian hydropower; 75 people died that day. The restoration of the station was officially completed on November 12, 2014.

It’s cozy inside the office part of Sayano-Shushenskaya, the food in the dining room is delicious (I forgot about my camera during lunch). The women who work in the offices here are very beautiful and smartly dressed.

Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station - view from the dam crest.

Spillway labyrinths.

Monument to the builders of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station.

View of the spillway at night. Photographed around the time of the earthquake.

©Olga Salii. Copying material