Last week I was lucky enough to visit Russia's largest Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, which is also the largest engineering structure in our country.

The Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is located on the Yenisei River, on the border between the Krasnoyarsk Territory and Khakassia. The height of its dam is 242 meters.

The construction of the hydroelectric power station began in 1963 and was completed only in 1990. The first hydraulic unit with a temporary impeller was put under industrial load on December 18, 1978. Now this wheel has been turned into a monument.

The wheel was temporary because at first the station was launched at low water pressure, while the dam was not yet completed. The dam was completed in 1980 with 9.075 million m³ of concrete. Ten hydroelectric power plants were launched in 1979-1985. Each hydroelectric unit has a capacity of 640 megawatts. The total power of the station is 6.4 gigawatts. By 1986, the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP had generated 80 billion kWh and fully paid back the construction costs.

On August 17, 2009, the largest accident in the history of Russian hydropower occurred at the station, which caused the death of 75 people. The restoration of the station was completed on November 12, 2014. All equipment was replaced at the HPP, even the equipment that was not damaged in the accident. All turbines, generators, transformers, automation, control system, distribution station have been replaced. The construction of the onshore spillway has been completed (its construction was started in 2005, but was suspended due to lack of funding).

Now the machine room of the station looks like this. From what was before, only the frame of the building remained.

Control systems - the most modern.

There are also analog devices.

Right now, one hydroelectric unit is producing 620.9 million watts.

I managed to approach the disconnected hydraulic unit and look inside.

From a distance, the engine room seems quite small (this is due to the fact that the dam is gigantic), but inside it turned out to be huge.

And this is what it looks like from the outside.

Water, passing through the turbine, twists into vortices for a long time.

Huge transformers are installed behind the machine room, increasing the voltage to 500 kilovolts. Their buzz can be heard even on the observation deck one and a half kilometers from the station.

The feeling when you stand at the base of the dam is absolutely inexpressible. She is incredibly huge.

There is a person in this photo. Try to find it.

This is a climber checking the condition of the dam.

From above it looks very scary.

The thickness of the dam reaches 100 meters. There are two levels on its crest. The lower one is a service car passage.

A crane moves along the top, lifting the spillway dampers.

I always thought I wasn't afraid of heights. Looking down over the parapet, I realized that I was afraid.

From the crest of the dam, a stunning view of the Yenisei opens up.

But this view, alas, will not be seen by any tourist. This is the reservoir in front of the dam.

The fact is that all "life" is below, behind the dam. And in front of her there are no roads, no residential settlements for many hundreds of kilometers, and it is impossible for an ordinary person to get there.
The dam looks like this from above.

At the bottom left are the entrances to the coastal spillway tunnel.

I’ll tell you about how it works and about many more interesting things next time.

To be continued.

Thanks to RusHydro for the opportunity to be at the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP and see its work from the inside.

© 2015, Alexey Nadezhin

SShGES them. P. S. Neporozhny is a high-pressure hydroelectric power plant of the dam type, the most powerful power plant in Russia. The main facilities of the station are located in the Karlovo range, in this place the Yenisei flows in a deeply incised canyon-like valley. It is quite difficult to convey the scale of this gigantic structure with the help of a photograph. For example, the length of the crest of the dam is more than one kilometer, and the height is 245 meters, higher than the main building of Moscow State University.

1. The pressure front of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is formed by a unique concrete arch-gravity dam, which is the highest dam of this type in the world. If you climb one of the slopes of the gorge, a beautiful view of the dam itself, the tailpipe and the Sayano-Shushenskoye reservoir, with a total volume of 31 km³, opens up.

3. About eleven thousand different sensors are installed in the body of the dam, which control the state of the entire structure and its elements.



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4. The construction of the dam began in 1968 and lasted seven years. The amount of concrete laid in the dam - 9.1 million m³ - would be enough to build a highway from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok.

5. The diameter of such a "pipe" of the turbine conduit is 7.5 meters.

6. Top view of the machine room and the administrative building of the station.

7. A few words about the principle of the dam. Any dam other than storage must pass a certain amount of water. Each of the ten hydroelectric units of the SSHHPP can pass 350 m³ of water per second. Now 4 out of 10 hydroelectric units are in operation, and in winter their capacity is quite sufficient.
The white area is a water well of the operational spillway, this area can easily accommodate a football field for the World Cup, though it will turn out to be “football on ice”.

8. During floods and floods, the gates of the operational spillway are opened. It is designed to discharge excess water inflow, which cannot be passed through the HPP hydroelectric units or accumulated in the reservoir. The maximum design capacity of the operational spillway is 13600 m³ (that's five 50-meter swimming pools with 10 lanes) per second! A sparing regime for a water well located under an operational spillway is considered to be an expense of 7000 - 7500 m³.

9. The length of the crest of the dam, taking into account the coastal insets, is 1074 meters, the width along the base is 105 meters, along the crest - 25. The dam is cut into the rocks of the banks to a depth of 10-15 meters.
Stability and strength are ensured by the action of the dam's own weight (by 60%) and partially by the emphasis of the upper arched part against the banks (by 40%).



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11. Coastal fortifications.

12. From the dam you can see the village of Cheryomushki, which is connected to the hydroelectric power station by a highway and an unusual tram line.
In 1991, several city trams were purchased in Leningrad and converted into two-cabin ones for the railway track without reversal rings, left over from the time of the construction of the hydroelectric power station. Now free trams run from the village to the hydroelectric power station with a frequency of one hour. Thus, the transport problem for the station workers and residents of Cheryomushki was solved, and the only tram line in Khakassia became a landmark of the village.

13. View of the Sayano-Shushenskoye reservoir from the entrance portal of the coastal spillway.



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14. The shore spillway consists of an inlet head, two free-flow tunnels, an outlet portal, a five-stage drop and a discharge channel.



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16. Despite the frosts, the ice on the reservoir rises quite late - usually at the end of January.

19. A coastal spillway during the passage of large floods will make it possible to carry out an additional flow of up to 4000 m³ / s and, thereby, reduce the load on the operational spillway of the station and ensure a sparing regime in the water well. The inlet head serves to organize a smooth entry of the water flow into two free-flow tunnels.

20. In winter, the portals are covered with heat shields.

21. The length of two tunnels is 1122 meters, with a section of 10x12 meters each, which is enough to accommodate 4 metro tunnels.

23. Exit portal. The estimated speed of water movement at the outlet of the tunnel is 22 m/s.

24. The five-stage drop consists of five extinguishing wells 100 m wide and 55 to 167 m long, separated by spillway dams. The drop will ensure the damping of the energy of the flow and a calm connection with the riverbed. The maximum flow velocities at the entrance to the upper well reach 30 m/s, at the junction with the river bed they decrease to - 4–5 m/s.
A 3D video about the launch of the first line of the onshore spillway.



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25. For a better idea of ​​scale, this is an earlier photograph of the construction of the lower well. Author gelio .

27. Two gantry cranes are installed on the crest of the dam to open the gates.

28. Yenisei is one of the largest rivers in Russia. The area of ​​its basin, which provides inflow to the site of the hydroelectric power station, is about 180 thousand km², which is three times the size of the Republic of Khakassia.

29. Yenisei - the border between Western and Eastern Siberia. The left bank of the Yenisei ends the great West Siberian plains, and the right bank represents the realm of mountain taiga. From the Sayans to the Arctic Ocean, the Yenisei passes through all the climatic zones of Siberia. Camels live in its upper reaches, and polar bears live in its lower reaches.

30. Work of shamans...

32. Thanks to the photographer Valery from the press service of the SSHGES, who led me to this slope. The view is excellent. True, walking knee-deep in snow, and in some places waist-deep, was not easy.

SAYANO-SHUSHENSKAYA HPP

Why did the dam collapse

“I am very afraid to wear wreaths on the Yenisei until the end of my days,” says Nikolai Zholob. - The son does not have a grave, and his soul will not be able to calm down.

When the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was being built, Nikolai Zholob was the head of a convoy of heavy BELAZ trucks. Even now he has such powerful shoulders that he can easily carry a wheel from a dump truck. But in his hands are the lists of the dead - more than 70 people. Nikolai Zholob spends all day and night arranging other people's affairs and destinies so as not to think about his own misfortune, which is worse than bitter. Son Maxim was born at the station, from childhood he dreamed of working at it, and for more than a week rescuers and divers have not been able to find him and several other people from the last shift.

Please show me a photo of my son. And I see how a transparent tear rolls down the face of a healthy man, wagging along the wrinkles. I want to hide my eyes.

“You can’t show a photo, Maxim hasn’t been found yet,” says Nikolai. I understand that my son is gone. But the mother believes. And two little daughters are waiting for their dad. The son from work ten minutes after the start of the shift called and told his mother: “Something incomprehensible is going on. Take the kids and run to the country." And immediately the connection was interrupted.

“Vasilich, I saw your son,” the man who came up suddenly says. He is pale as a convict, and over his clothes he is girded with a traumatic bandage. - When they entered the engine room, he walked in front of me. He was cheerful, he talked about the weekend.

Father's eyes flash and then go out. The man refuses to give his name. “Only to the investigator,” he says as he leaves. I already signed up. I don't want to go to jail. Although even a prison after this is not a problem. ” This man is one of the few survivors. 111 people entered the station - 36 survived.

- Maybe I built this station in vain? - Nikolai Zholob asks himself.

Sarcophagus for hydropower

The Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is twice as high and four times as long as the pyramid of Cheops, which strikes the imagination of many generations and is the most famous wonder of the world. Unlike the pyramid of Cheops, the hydroelectric station did not stand as a dead tomb, but worked like an ox. For 30 years, the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was supposed to sing praises and compose laudatory odes in her honor, which Elizaveta Petrovna would envy. The Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is the largest in Eurasia. Turbines and generators are the best in the world, hydroelectric units are the largest, there are no equals. Transformers are the strongest and most durable, so major repairs are not needed, only prevention. There are higher stations in the world, but they are narrow, in terms of the totality of parameters, the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is the world record holder. The reliability of the station was not in doubt and was a deadly and irrefutable counter-argument both in disputes about Soviet quality and in philosophical disputes about man-made disasters.

To speed up the time, for the first time in the world, the installation of the units was carried out not at the plant, but directly at the station in the engine room, when there was no roof or walls. Concrete was spent on construction so much that it was possible to build fifty pyramids of Cheops. In the flow of praise, they did not pay attention to the fact that such grandiose hydroelectric power plants are being built only in China, India, South America, in Canada construction has been suspended, and in the USA the emphasis is on cascades of smaller hydroelectric power plants. The largest American hydroelectric power station on Niagara was built in 1970, and it is half the size of Sayano-Shushenskaya. But Americans simply do not like to carry all the eggs in one basket - such a national fad. The Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station has become a vivid monument of industrialization with its gigantomania and contempt for economic expediency.

On August 17, 2009, the Sayano-Shushenskaya pyramid took the top line in another list - the largest disasters at hydroelectric power stations in the world. A hundred-ton cover from the best hydraulic unit in the world flew around the engine room like a boomerang. The picture of the destruction has already been described, as well as the dramatic search for the dead, which were increasing day by day. Even seasoned experts were horrified. One of the generals of the Ministry of Emergency Situations in the room where the workers who came to replace a few days ago gathered lost consciousness. Until now, even with the help of dentists, it has not been possible to identify all the dead. Doctors from the Federal Medical and Biological Service say that genetic identification in Moscow will take at least a month ...

“The priest told me that if someone else's body is put in the coffin, the candle will go out,” said the father of 25-year-old Anton Kachan, who is awaiting the identification results.

Looking for a scapegoat

When you see the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP in its current form, it seems that a team of saboteurs-explosives worked here. I can't believe that soft water could turn out so much metal and concrete. The picture of destruction is bewildering: as if the cruel finger of fate selectively pointed to the units, and the neighboring ones, according to an equally unknown logic, pardoned. The weight of one unit is 1,700 tons, and it was assembled right at the station, partly for the reason that there is no transport that would bring such a colossus. But the water uprooted him and turned him over like a child's top. As a result of the accident, which began with the second unit, the seventh and ninth were completely destroyed, in addition to it. The first, third, fourth and tenth have separate injuries, but the fifth and eighth generally escaped with a slight fright. Unit number six, which was not running at the time of the accident, is in satisfactory condition and can be started up the fastest.

“A week ago, I thought that hydropower was the safest way to generate energy,” says Valentin Stafievsky, who was the chief engineer of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP for two decades and is today the leading expert on situation analysis in the Rostekhnadzor commission. Now I won't say it. It turned out that we know too little about hydropower and cannot understand the causes of the accident. Today, only an amateur and ignorant person can talk about versions of the accident. I declare with all certainty: there were no harbingers of a catastrophe. All units at the hydroelectric power station are quite new, they are far from worn out. Technically, this HPP was successful. The ill-fated second unit, from which the destruction began, worked normally, in the normal mode, and had no failures recently. There is not a single node that could provoke an accident. It's a matter of honor for me to find out the cause of the accident."

Valentin Stafievsky can disassemble and assemble all the units of a hydroelectric power station with his eyes closed, just like a good sergeant assembles a Kalashnikov. In addition, he has the highest moral authority for everyone who works at the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP. Today, this man is terrible to look at. I asked him about awards and titles. “It doesn't matter,” Stafievsky replied. “All my regalia have been destroyed by the accident. I am ashamed to look into the eyes of the people to whom I spoke about the reliability of the hydroelectric power station. They believed me, and now I consider myself an outcast. The feeling is that I lived my life in vain, everything is crossed out. I won’t leave here until I find the cause of the accident.”

In our country, especially recently, there are many man-made accidents. In each case, a conclusion of a technical expertise is required to clarify the reasons. But experts always immediately and publicly put forward several possible versions. And most often, what was said in hot pursuit is confirmed, because a real specialist knows the weaknesses of the mechanism with which he is dealing. The accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station is the first case when for a very long time none of the experts could put forward any hypotheses with signs of reliability.

The situation was abnormal and called for blood. Then, at the highest level, a scapegoat was named - a company that developed an automated control system. Even the president was informed about the suspicious office under the pretense that the ministers had not heard anything about it either. “I can’t comment on the words of the federal ministers,” he told me. about. Chairman of the Board of RusHydro Vasily Zubakin. – But this is a company from St. Petersburg, tested under many contracts, which has been successfully working in the energy sector for a long time, including in other countries and on other continents. In Russia, this company supplies equipment to the largest hydroelectric power plants.” I saw technical references that the ACS worked fine until it died along with all other systems. However, later Rostekhnadzor again filed claims at the same address, and this suggests that the garden where the stone should be thrown was chosen according to a simple principle - where the fence is thinner and the roof is lower.

There are no empty eyes

Uncertainty breeds rumours. The most terrible of them is the knock on the concrete partitions of people in air bags crying for help under water. Colonel of the Krasnoyarsk branch of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Loginov, shaking the ashes from a cigarette into a broken window block, told me the bitter truth: “We found two people in air bags on the first day. They really hit the wall. We cut out thick pieces of concrete, pulled them out barely alive after 15 hours. The rest died deep underwater, there were no air sacs. Could it have been faster? Divers exceeded all standards. Do not forget that the station was de-energized for a long time, the plugs could not be closed, water continued to flow into the engine room with wild force.

Heroism is becoming a habit with us, but where, pardon the prose, are autonomous power supply systems? To block the water, a powerful diesel had to be dragged to the dam, but it took a long time. The panic that engulfed Khakassia did not arise from grandmother's rumors - the water behind the dam was coming, and the spillway was closed.

If it is not possible to find out the cause of the accident, how to guarantee the safety of other HPPs? In Russia, there are about two dozen large plants with a capacity of more than 1,000 MW. The government quickly decided to check their technical condition, but what to check and what to fix when the problem is in the fog? The Boguchanskaya hydroelectric power station is currently being built - how to build it if the Sayano-Shushenskaya accident crossed out the previous experience?

“The condition of other hydropower plants in Russia is satisfactory,” Vasily Zubakin, who manages 53 Russian hydropower plants, told me. “The proof is that there have been no serious accidents in our system in recent years. Every year we carry out the repair program, its pace is not slowing down, in 2009 we managed to reverse the trend towards aging of funds, the rejuvenation of equipment began. After the accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, a decision was made to immediately and thoroughly analyze the situation at all hydropower facilities in Russia. The directors of many Russian HPPs have already arrived at the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, participate with their teams in its restoration and at the same time analyze the situation. 350 people arrived from the Volga-Kama cascade alone. We are waiting for repair teams from the Siberian hydroelectric power stations.”

Here a treacherous thought creeps in: if it happened to another hydroelectric power station, and people were transferred to repair the Sayano-Shushenskaya ... But it is necessary to repair the units as soon as possible, and launching the station is vital. First of all, not to generate energy, which is coveted by the aluminum magnates who stand on the maintenance of hydroelectric power plants. While the units are silent, the water of the Yenisei leaves through the spillway and beats from a height of two hundred meters along the well at the base of the dam. The water well is already not very strong, it must be constantly patched up. In 1985, 75% of the concrete slabs of the water well were destroyed. If, before the spring flood, at least some of the units are not started up so that they also pass water, there is a danger that the flimsy spillway and the well will not cope with a powerful flood and the cracks will spread to the base of the dam.

“Ordinary people don’t need such huge stations as the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP,” an investigator from the prosecutor’s office, hiding behind the simple name Viktor, told me confidentially. – These giants are needed by the owners of aluminum plants. Recently, the criminal authority Anatoly Bykov owned the Krasnoyarsk plant, whom we sent to prison with difficulty. Now there are oligarchs who take all their income to the West. And here people get money for them and die. This is a showdown in a new way, modernized.”

At the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, I was never able to find out the cause of the disaster. I believe that it will not be long to wait - it will be installed. But here is a fact that is silently bypassed. On the eve of the accident in June-July 2009, electricity generation at the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP reached its maximum for the entire thirty-year period of its operation. Appetites grew in proportion to the growth of profits. In August-September, it was planned to increase the fresh record by another 10%. The technology was old, but the economy was new.

Maybe technology punished people for being greedy? You can't fill a bottomless barrel with water. People went haywire - and technology went haywire.

Worked "excellent"

“The most important issue for me, as for the director of the enterprise, is always to ensure the reliable and safe operation of the equipment and structures of the Sayano-Shushensky hydropower complex. During the construction of the hydroelectric power plant, unique equipment was installed, hydro turbines and hydro units are still considered the best world models. In 2008, the program of repairs, technical re-equipment and reconstruction of the Sayano-Shushensky hydropower complex was completed in full. The most important result of the work carried out at the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP to modernize the equipment was an increase in 2008 of the maximum output capacity of the hydroelectric complex by 400 MW.”

Nikolai Nevolko, director of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP,

July 2009

The dam overstressed and choked

“Why list versions and worry the public when experts reject them one after another, but then come back again because they got new data? – says Vasily Zubakin. - We can definitely say that four versions have been rejected: a terrorist attack, a water hammer, the destruction of the turbine blades and, I emphasize, the human factor, traces of which are not visible under any circumstances. The picture of destruction is so serious and complex that Rostekhnadzor experts say they will establish the cause of the accident only by the end of September.”

Vasily Zubakin is a man with roots in Siberia and St. Petersburg. The company he heads is primarily responsible for the tragedy, for the loss of life and colossal destruction. “All the claims that I hear from the relatives of the dead and injured people, in whatever form they are expressed, I consider fair,” Zubakin told me. The head of RusHydro is dressed in the blue overalls of his company, which has become hated by many. The name of the top manager is clearly written on the overalls. One could say that this desperate man, who looks like a quiet office accountant, is taking a pretty big risk if working at a hydroelectric power station, as it turned out, was not fraught with even more risk ...

“We demand that our demands be met before all the bosses have left the HPP,” Nikolai Zholob, the former head of the convoy, minted. His son cannot be found, he is missing. - After the earthquake on Sakhalin in 1995, the bosses promised a lot of things, but left for Moscow and forgot to think about people. Khakassia is a poor region, only RusHydro is able to help people. We were promised 1 million rubles for the deceased, and some families are already receiving money. But this is not enough. We demand 5 million each, as well as social guarantees for children and families.”

Hydroelectric power station as a territory of war

There are two large hydroelectric stations in the Krasnoyarsk Territory - Sayano-Shushenskaya and Krasnoyarskaya. In terms of capacity, they are the first and second hydroelectric power stations in Russia. The first belongs to RusHydro, the second fell out of the monopoly. And everyone knows that the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station works reliably, the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station is lame in all limbs from the moment it was launched. The reason is in the initially not very successful project. Failures at the station happen with the regularity of a rabbit's pregnancy. However, the owner was also not very prudent.

Since its privatization in the early 1990s, the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, as a source of huge flows of cheap energy, has become a bait for a host of powerful structures. Loud courts rumbled around the largest in Russia and the sixth in the world hydroelectric power station, the results of privatization were declared illegal, they tried to re-register the station in another subject of the federation, swelled like a pimple, merger projects with aluminum giants with the participation of offshore companies in sweet Cyprus. The best representatives of the era - Chubais, Deripaska, Abramovich, Berezovsky, as well as the governors Lebed and Khloponin - twisted each other's arms, seeking control over the tasty hydroelectric power station. The station acquired its current guaranteed status only by 2005. The history of the struggle for property is not original in itself and has been repeated in our country many times, but in this case it led to tragic consequences, since uncertainty did not allow large investments in the reliability of the station, in the repair and replacement of equipment. The need for these works was obvious to technical specialists - the construction of a spillway, repair of a water well and the dam itself could not be postponed. According to Vasily Zubakin, it was only in 2008 that the trend towards aging assets at the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was reversed. Rare stinginess, despite the long fat years ...

In 2006, the net profit of RusHydro, which provides half of the capacities of the Russian hydropower industry, amounted to 1.5 billion rubles, in 2007 - 8.6 billion, in 2008 - already 16.5 billion. RusHydro grew rich by leaps and bounds in 2009 year became the most profitable Russian company. The Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is a quarter of RusHydro's capacity, the cash cow of the water empire. But they saw in her a race mare. 2009 in terms of energy production and profits promised to be a record year for all 30 years of operation of the station. Month after month, the station operated at peak capacity, improving economic performance. In August, the most recent records were supposed to fall, but August ended in tragedy.

After the accident, a member of the board of directors of RusHydro, Doctor of Technical Sciences Rustem Khamitov, said that for reliability it is better to work at constant and high loads than to jump up and down. As for production volumes, the initiative came not only from RusGidro, but also from the dispatchers of the Unified Energy Grid of Russia together with the Ministry of Energy.

“Money was pumped out of our hydroelectric power station faster than water was pumped out of the turbine hall when the accident happened,” the father of the missing Anton Kachan told me. “The fact that the HPP units are in a dangerous state, strange sounds are heard, they said two more weeks before the accident, but the load was only increased.”

If we are talking about millions in profits, then the question is without false hypocrisy: is it a lot or a little of 5 million rubles for the deceased? Maybe one million will suffice? But let's take the accounts: young guys died, and with a salary of 30-40 thousand rubles, they would have earned these 5 million for families in 15 years, that is, by the age of majority of the children left orphans. By the way, the bonuses that members of the board and members of the board of directors of RusHydro receive every year for their hard work are so generous that any top manager could shell out these millions from his pocket in one move ...

Vibrating alert didn't touch anyone

In previous years, the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was controlled by four seismic stations. It's not that they trumpeted about an earthquake - the hydroelectric power station is earthquake-resistant with a large margin. The sensors also controlled the fluctuations that come from the units of the hydroelectric power station, because each one is like a small volcano. But three stations are closed to save money. For the same reasons, the railway line that led to the hydroelectric power station was dismantled, and the airport in Sayanogorsk was closed. So, on the night of the accident, the last seismic station registered anomalous vibrations coming from the side of the hydroelectric power station. Many people told me about the strange sounds coming from the inside of the second unit for two weeks, and especially on the last night. However, Valentin Stafievsky, who has been the chief engineer of the HPP for 20 years and enjoys unquestioned authority, said that the sensors at the HPP did not record any vibrations. But were these sensors accurate, they didn’t measure monetary profit, but some technical nonsense ...

A modern approach to complex technical systems involves constant, on-line monitoring at a level that is adequate to high technologies. The HPPs of Tatarstan, which are not part of the RusHydro empire, are equipped with sensitive instruments that make it possible to catch a shift of 1-2 millimeters in any element of a complex structure in 1 second. Monitoring is carried out by Russian spacecraft. After the accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, Anatoly Perminov, the head of Roscosmos, told me that the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory decided to urgently install this system at his hydroelectric power stations, which are not subordinate to RusHydro. No one in RusHydro is interested in monitoring at this level, but funds are being sought for the restoration of the station and the accelerated construction of the Boguchanskaya HPP in the same region. But if the cause of the accident is not found, its lessons and consequences are not studied, then how to build new projects? Where is the guarantee that the new project does not contain the virus that destroyed the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP? Experienced strategists enter the battle if they are sure of victory. Otherwise - boyishness and rotozeystvo.

“The fourth, fifth and sixth units, which were not affected by the accident, will be covered with a sealed tent, and they can be launched, perhaps by the end of the year,” says Vasily Zubakin. “The complete restoration of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP will take about four years and cost 40 billion rubles.”

Many worthy people say that the tragedy will serve as a lesson and raise hydropower around the world to a qualitatively new level. A quarter of a century ago, the same words were spoken after Chernobyl. And even earlier - about the revolution, about the repressions and about something else. Is our country really obliged to enrich the sublunar world with the experience of tragic catastrophes?

Professor Vladimir Tetelmin: Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is a giant "black box"

The accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP caused a huge public outcry. An official conclusion on the causes of the largest catastrophe in the hydropower industry will not be ready soon. In the meantime, authoritative experts are arguing about what happened at the station, which was considered the pearl of hydropower. One of the most knowledgeable experts in hydraulic engineering is Doctor of Technical Sciences Vladimir Tetelmin, who studied the dam of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP for 12 years. He was a State Duma deputy of the 1st and 2nd convocations, became one of the authors of the law "On the safety of hydraulic structures." Professor Vladimir Tetelmin substantiates his hypothesis of a tragedy at the largest Russian hydroelectric power station.

Question: Vladimir Vladimirovich, the first impression of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is a cyclopean structure. But unlike the Egyptian pyramids and fortress walls, the station is stuffed with the most complex equipment - from powerful hydraulic units to sensitive tensors. For an outsider, the dam is a monolith, but in fact it is an anthill riddled with a thousand shafts. Is the idea too complicated? And what is an arch-gravity structure that has no analogues in the world?

Answer: Gravity dams rest on the bottom of the river, arched dams are attached to the banks. At the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, which is over 1 km long and approaches 250 meters high, both principles are chosen. And this makes the dam extremely sensitive to the state of the environment. It is not visible under water, but the bottom of the dam is more than 100 meters. The left bank of the Yenisei is composed of pliable orthoschists with a high level of plasticity.

For hydraulic engineers, the water drop in front of the dam is key. Fluctuations in the upper pool are very large and reach forty meters per season, temperature fluctuations - from plus thirty to minus thirty degrees. These are powerful factors, but in the era of industrialization and megalomania, when the dam was being designed, hatred reigned, and no attention was paid to environmental factors. The Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is a giant "black box" that lives according to laws unknown to people.

Question: I saw an impressive figure: the sum of hydrostatic loads at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station reaches 22 million tons - this is a composition of 500 thousand tanks, which every moment presses on the dam.

Answer: In 1985, a crack was discovered in the first, highest column of the dam, which went from coast to coast. 550 liters of water passed through the crack every second - an underwater river.

Question: A lot of cracks form on the wing of an airplane, but this is normal. The strength of a wing is characterized by how it holds a crack.

Answer: There should be no cracks in hydraulic engineering. Concrete was washed out for eight years, only in 1996 specialists from France managed to restore the solidity of the dam with polymers. However, the erosion of the dam continued, and today, out of four pillars, the dam is securely attached to the rocky bottom only by the last, fourth pillar. That is, the SSHHPP does not work as a gravity dam - only as an arched one.

The greatest danger is the sliding of the crest of the dam towards the downstream, that is, downstream of the Yenisei. The body of the dam consists of 67 sections. In 2006, the displacement of the central 33rd section by 142 millimeters was recorded, due to the arch effect, irreversible deformations along the crest of the dam amounted to 60 millimeters. As for the 18th section, where the peddled second unit is located, the displacement on it was 107 millimeters, although the symmetrical 45th section on the other side moved only 97 millimeters. All this created monstrous internal stresses in the body of the dam.

According to the law "On the safety of hydraulic structures", an offset of 108 millimeters is critical for safety. That is, in 2006, the margin of safety was only 1 millimeter. The section where the accident happened had been working at the limit for several years. In three years, the displacement could have grown much more than 1 millimeter. According to the Law, it was necessary to urgently reduce the load, but in the pursuit of profit, on the contrary, they increased it.

Question: Displacements of tens of millimeters are incomparable with the dimensions of the dam. Is there a way to catch such shifts?

Answer: There are 3,000 strain gauges and 3,000 deformometers in the dam. There are 3,000 geodesy observation points and 3,000 water filtration control points. At a depth of 40 meters under the bottom of the Yenisei, an anchor is fixed - a reference point, relative to which displacements are determined. The given data are recorded officially and recognized by RusHydro. So, there is no doubt that from year to year the displacements grew and the stresses in the body of the dam increased, especially in the upper arched belts and in the lower wedge adjacent to the turbine hall.

Question: All this is very unpleasant, but what does it have to do with the fact that the second unit went haywire? There is a separation seam of 50 millimeters between the body of the dam and the machine room so that the dam does not come into contact with the machinery.

Answer: The fact of the matter is that the dam gradually crawled up and leaned on the engine room. In addition, the connection with the machine room occurs through water pipes, through which water flows from above under a pressure of 20 atmospheres. Stresses in the body of the dam are eventually transferred to the hydraulic unit. My hypothesis is that the dam fell on the engine room and broke the alignment of the unit. The alignment of the axles 2 of a 700-ton unit must have an accuracy of microns! The beating and vibrations began, which were noticed a day before the accident, but did not make an emergency stop. The unit went haywire, which is typical for imbalance and misalignment. The hypothesis is supported by the fact that the bolts of the hydraulic unit found in the engine room were not only cracked, but also covered with corrosion, that is, they had been in a broken state for a long time.

Question: Can you give a forecast of how the situation will develop and whether the slide of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP will continue?

Answer: Not all factors have yet been taken into account. The mass of the giant reservoir in front of the dam is billions of tons. According to my calculations, the soil under the dam has already subsided by 30 centimeters - these are new stresses. The consequences of explosions during the construction of a coastal spillway have not been studied. In addition, the global impact of the hydroelectric complex on the earth's crust and tectonic processes is not clear. These are such complex tasks that large hydroelectric power stations have not been built in the United States for a long time, because the same load can be removed from a cascade of medium-sized power plants.

But the main danger lies in the fact that in winter, since the units are not working, the water conduits will freeze, stop supporting the dam - and it can also fall hard on other units that have so far remained intact.

The only way out is to sharply reduce the pressure and reduce the load on the station. Possible economic losses are negligible compared to the damage that will bring further destruction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP.

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

The composition of the station facilities

The main object of the station is the arch-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 along 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 spillway part is 190 m long, and the station part is 332 m.

The dam building of the hydroelectric power station is adjacent to the dam.

Tourism

The station itself and its engine room are interesting as tourist sites. The power plant also has its own museum. Since the object is secure, it can only be visited through regional tour operators.

The area where the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is located (map below) is a place that has become popular with 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 by the Khakass, as is the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station. The map of Khakassia allows you to better know where these places are.

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. Severe geological conditions and rocky spurs prevented its laying, which made its laying one of the most expensive in the world.

Construction

The final decision to start construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was made in 1962. Construction began in 1968. In 1975, during the construction of the hydroelectric power station, the Yenisei riverbed was blocked, and already in 1978, with the launch of the first hydroelectric unit, the station gave the first current. From 1979 to 1985, another nine hydroelectric units were put into operation sequentially. In 1988, the construction of the station was basically 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 miscalculations were discovered in the engine room and the station spillway. In 2007, a scheduled inspection revealed significant wear of booms, which were 20 years old. Not very successful, prone to increased cracking, was the design of the hydroelectric units with which the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was equipped. 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 its own adjustments to the plans of the builders.

Accident

The Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, the accident at which occurred on August 17, 2009, caused great damage.

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

The tragedy was thoroughly investigated. The act of investigation was published in October 2009.

Recovery

New hydraulic units to replace the damaged ones were ordered from Power Machines. 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. At the same time, work was underway to dismantle unit No. 2 and build a coastal spillway, which ended in 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 hydroelectric units of the station, which suffered the least, were put into operation.

In 2011, the second stage of reconstruction started. 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 hydroelectric 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 the reconstruction of the station started. As part of its implementation in 2014, hydroelectric unit No. 4 gave current.

The Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP underwent a complete re-equipment with new hydraulic units from OJSC Power Machines, which have the best parameters and meet strict safety and reliability requirements. The capacity of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP became equal to the nominal one - 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 HPP, whose photos immediately after the accident and today are strikingly different, is operating at full capacity.

The Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is the largest power plant in Russia in terms of installed capacity, the 7th among the currently operating hydroelectric power plants in the world.

The design of a high-pressure arch-gravity dam has no analogues in world and domestic practice. The height of the structure is 245 m, the length along the crest is 1074.4 m, the width along the base is 105.7 m and along the crest is 25 m. In plan, it looks like a circular arch with a radius of 600 m and a central angle of 102 degrees. The SShHPP dam is one of the ten highest dams in the world.

The stability and strength of the dam under water pressure (about 30 million tons) is ensured both by its own weight (by about 60%) and by transferring the hydrostatic load to the rocky shores (by 40%). The dam is cut into the rocky shores to a depth of 15 m. The dam is connected to the base in the channel by cutting into a solid rock to a depth of 5 m.

Operational spillway SSHHPP. Designed to discharge excess water inflow during floods and floods, which cannot be passed through hydroelectric power plants or accumulated in a reservoir. The spillway has 11 openings, which are buried 60 m from the FSL and 11 spillways, consisting of a closed section and an open flume, which run along the lower face of the dam. Four-meter springboard socks complete the spillways, at the exit from them the water speed reaches 55 m/s.

Coastal spillway. The construction of an additional onshore spillway was dictated by the need to improve the reliability and safety of the hydrotechnical structures of the station. The structure allows for additional passage of flow rates up to 4000 cubic meters per second (the main flow flow is through the operational spillway and culverts of hydroelectric units) and, thereby, reduce the load on the operational spillway of the station and ensure a sparing regime in the water well. The coastal spillway is designed to pass extreme floods and floods of rare recurrence.

The location of the shore spillway, relative to the station itself.

Turbine conduits SSHHPP. Turbine conduit - a pressure pipeline that supplies water to the turbines of a hydroelectric power plant. At the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, water conduits are steel-reinforced concrete. Inner diameter 7.5 m; reinforced concrete cladding thickness - 1.5 m.

Transformer site.

Engine room. The HPP building houses 10 hydraulic units, each with a capacity of 640 MW, with radial-axial turbines operating at a design head of 194 m (working head range - from 175 to 220 m). The nominal speed of the hydraulic turbine is 142.8 rpm, the maximum water flow through the turbine is 358 m/s, the efficiency of the turbine in the optimal zone is about 96%, the total weight of the hydraulic turbine equipment is 1440 tons.

Several hydraulic units are still under repair after the well-known accident. By 2014, Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP will be fully equipped with absolutely new and modern equipment with improved performance and meeting all reliability and safety requirements.

The manufacturer of turbines and generators of generators is OJSC Power Machines. According to the results of tests carried out by the plant on already installed equipment, the hydroelectric units are capable of developing a capacity of up to 720 MW, thus being the most powerful hydroelectric units of Russian HPPs.

Let's go down a level. In the photo, a huge rotating rotor. Rotation speed 142.8 rpm.

Lower. Turbine shaft. The hydraulic unit consists of two independent parts: a hydro turbine and a hydro generator connected by a shaft. In the turbine shaft we can see both. There is a turbine under the feet, a generator above the head, a rotating shaft is visible in the center. Directly under the iron floor are servomotors that drive the vanes of the guide vanes, which regulate the amount of water entering the turbine wheel.

Lower. spiral chamber. It is designed to supply water to the guide vanes of the turbine. The special shape of the chamber with decreasing cross-sections serves to evenly distribute the flow over the entire circumference of the stator.

Coupling of a spiral chamber with a turbine conduit. The diameter here is 7.5 m. This is more than in a standard metro tunnel.

Lower. Turbine wheel. The impeller connected to the turbine shaft is the rotor of a radial-axial turbine that converts the energy of the water flow into mechanical energy. Wheel weight - 145 tons, diameter - 6.77 m.

And finally, we are at the very bottom. Suction curved pipe that brings water to the surface in the downstream.

Central control panel.

Reservoir SSHHPP. By order of the Government of the Russian Federation of November 16, 2006, the Sayano-Shushenskoye reservoir is included in the list of 70 reservoirs that are strategic sources of drinking water, which will be in exclusive federal ownership. The use of their water resources is carried out to ensure drinking and domestic water supply to large areas of one or more subjects of the Russian Federation.