OREANDA-NEWS. June 21, 2011. JSC RusHydro (ticker symbol: RTS, MICEX, LSE: HYDR; OTCQX: RSHYY) announces that the official ceremony of loading the first lot of large-sized equipment manufactured by JSC Power Machines for RusHydro's Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant (HPP) was held in St. Petersburg during the 5th International Economic Forum.

Igor Sechin, Deputy Russian Prime Minister, Sergey Shmatko, Russian Minister of Energy, Valentina Matviyenko, Governor of Saint Petersburg, Evgeny Dod, Chairman of the Management Board of RusHydro, Alexey Mordashov, Chairman of Power Machines' Management Board, Igor Kostin, General Director of Power Machines and representatives from numerous Russian agencies, design and construction companies and scientific institutes took part in the event.

Heavy blocks for the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydro-units were loaded on board a sea-river class vessel at a  berth at the Sverdlovskaya Embankment in Saint Petersburg. These three new sets of large-sized equipment will be shipped the only possible way - by sea and river during the 2011 summer navigation season. Each set consists of a hydro-turbine wheel (the weight of the wheel is 145 tons, with a diameter of 6.84 m), a generator center plate oil tank (the weight is 21 tons, with a diameter of 6.1 m) and a 13-ton rotor frame for an auxiliary generator, 6.09 m in diameter. Shipment of the first lot of new equipment will take 35-40 days.

The vessel with the hydropower units' heavy blocks on board will sail through Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega. From there, they will travel by the Belomorsko-Baltiysky Channel to the White Sea, and further 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 HPP and will ship the cargo to a berth (transfer point) in the lower pool of the Mainskaya HPP (downstream on the Yenisei, 21.5 km 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 the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP. The total length of the route will be 5,900 km. For more detailed information about the new equipment shipping procedure, please refer to the video at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyafSjXuSQ8

In 2011, RusHydro started implementing the second stage of Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP reconstruction. The Company will install ten absolutely new hydro-power units. The four units that returned to operation in 2010 (following reconstruction repair) will also be replaced with new ones. The first new hydro-power unit (under station number 1), in compliance with the Sayano-Shusenskaya HPP reconstruction schedule, is planned for commissioning in December 2011. From 2012 till 2014, three hydro-power units will be commissioned each year. As a result, by 2014, the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP will have been completely re-equipped with new and modern equipment that meet all reliability and safety requirements.