OREANDA-NEWS. October 29, 2012. The barge, which arrived with impellers for new hydropower units of Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP to the hydrosystem’s quay October 7 at 14:00 local time, has been unloaded at the transloading facility of Mainskaya HPP (located downstream the Yenisei in 21.5 km from SShHPP). This is the last consignment of large-size equipment for the plant’s new hydropower units. The four impellers have been shipped to a site near Mainskaya HPP with the help of a pickup mechanism (sheerlegs) and after that the barge has headed back to the river port of Peschanka.

The transportation of the large-size assemblies manufactured by Power Machines including: hydroturbine impellers (having a weight of 145 tons and a diameter of 6.84 m), generator thrust bearing oil baths (having a weight of 21 tons and a diameter of 6.1 m) and 13-ton frames of auxiliary generator rotors (6.09 m in diameter) was carried out by the only possible way – by sea and river routes during the summer navigation period of 2011 and 2012. Spetztyazhavtotrans Group of Companies was in charge of the equipment delivery.

The vessel loaded with the last consignment of large-size assemblies for hydropower units of Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP left the quay of Sverdlovskaya embankment (Saint Petersburg) on August 27. Then it went through Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega and next put to the White Sea Baltic Sea Canal to the White Sea so that, by passing along the Northern Sea Route, to go upstream the Yenisei River to Krasnoyarsk. In the river port of Peschanka the river-sea class vessel was unloaded to the quay. After that the four hydroturbine impellers were reloaded to a river barge. The remaining large-size assemblies were delivered to Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP by road.

Power Machines and RusHydro JSC entered into a contract to produce main power generation equipment for the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP reconstruction in November 2009. In addition, Power Machines specialists will provide services on the installation of the equipment supplied, including installation supervision and commissioning works.

In 2010 the hydropower units under plant's numbers 6, 5, 4 and 3 (the least damaged during the accident) were reconstructed at Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP. The reconstructed hydropower units run in the base-load mode without taking part in the frequency and power control.

In 2011 RusHydro JSC began implementing the second stage of the SShHPP reconstruction. During this stage 10 brand new hydropower units will be installed in the plant’s turbine hall.  At the same time the four machines, returned to operation in 2010 after their overhaul, will also be replaced with new ones. Thus the hydropower units under plant’s numbers 5 and 6 have already been put out of service for their further replacement.

As a result by 2014 Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP will be completely fitted out with brand new and state-of-the-art equipment having meeting all actual reliability and safety requirements. The new hydro-power units’ service life is extended up to 40 years, while the maximum hydroturbine’s efficiency amounts to 96.6%. The turbines are equipped with an advanced process safeguard system, which automatically shuts down a unit in case of unacceptable deviations of monitored performance parameters.