HPP Ust-Ilimskaya: photo, address. Construction of the Ust-Ilimskaya HPP

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

In the Irkutsk region, on the Angara River, there is one of the few hydroelectric power plants in the country that has paid for itself even before construction was completed. This is the Ust-Ilimskaya HPP, the third stage in the cascade of stations on the Angara.

Angara Basin

Even in the 30s of the last century, scientists and engineers of Russia became interested in studying the fuel and energy, mineral, and forest resources of the Irkutsk region. To study the potential of this region, the Angarsk Bureau of the State Planning Committee of the USSR was created. It was in it that projects were born to use the river's water resource in several energy-intensive industries - chemical processing of timber, the chemical industry, metallurgy and energy supply. In 1936, a decision was approved to build a cascade of six power plants on the Angara, the first and highest of which was the Ust-Ilimskaya HPP.

Climatic features of the region

The region of the construction of the hydroelectric complex is equated to the territory of the Far North, where the climate is sharply continental. The average annual temperature is -2.8°C. In addition, absolute figures range from -53,9°C at minimum to maximum at +41°C. The period with temperatures below 0 - 214 days a year. The snow cover covers the ground in early October and does not leave until the end of March. The temperature in winter is -45°C, and the wind blows at speeds up to 11 km/h.

The harsh edge of Irkutsk winters

The site where the Ust-Ilimskaya HPP is located was chosen 20 kilometers downstream of the Ilim River near a rocky cape called Tolstoy. In 1962, the terms for the construction of the Ust-Ilimskaya hydroelectric power station, the installed capacity and the schedule for preliminary work on preparing the infrastructure of the satellite city of the same name were determined. All construction work on the project was divided into two stages.

First stage of construction

This is the stage of preparatory work. It lasted from 1963 to 1967. During this period, the construction site and auxiliary production facilities on the left bank of the Angara were prepared. And these are concrete and reinforcement plants, car repair shops, a village for builders. A power line was laid, and in 1966 a through permanent car passage was opened from the nearest large center of the city of Bryansk.

The second stage of construction of the Ust-Ilimskaya HPP

March 1966 - the start date of the second stage and the official start date for the construction of the hydroelectric complex itself. This phase lasted seven years. And the first overlap of the Angara took place in February 1967. It was a huge construction project at a very fast pace. The maximum speed of dump trucks, work in one and a half shifts and lunches atworkplace - and after 2 years and 7 months the last rocky block of the blind dam. Looking at the photo of the Ust-Ilimskaya hydroelectric power station, it is hard to believe in such construction time.

First result

In 1968, concrete work began on the dam. From 1974 to 1977, the filling of the Ust-Ilimsk reservoir continued. And in the same 1974, the first unit of the station was launched, and in May 1975, the hydroelectric power plant produced the first billion kilowatts per hour. Over the course of four years, four units were put into operation. With the launch of the 15th unit, the Ust-Ilimskaya HPP started operating at full capacity in the first stage - 3,600 MW. And in 1979, the 16th unit was put into operation, in 1980 the hydroelectric complex entered into permanent operation.

Parameters and characteristics

The installed capacity of the Ust-Ilimskaya HPP is 4.3 GW, which is comparable to the parameters of the Bratskaya HPP. On average, the station generates 21.7 billion kWh per year. All 16 units of the station have a capacity of 240 MW each, operate at a water pressure of 90.7 meters. The pressure front, 3.84 kilometers long, forms the reservoir of the same name with a water surface area of 1922 square kilometers and a water volume of 59.2 cubic meters. km.

Water locking features

The Angara water barrier is formed by a gravity dam 105 meters high and 1475 meters long. It consists of 365 meters of fixed part, 242 meters of overflow dam and blind coastal dams. The left-bank part of the dam is rock and earth, its length is 1780 meters and its height is 28 meters. On the right bank the dam is sandy, its height is 47meters, and the length is 538 meters. The height of the headwater is 296 meters, there are no shipping locks, but the construction of a ship lift is planned.

Energy value

Fourth largest in Russia, the Ust-Ilimskaya HPP is an important link in the energy system of Siberia. Metallurgical and timber enterprises of the region are the main consumers of its electricity. It was the construction of this station, the first in the cascade of the Angarsk HPPs, that made it possible to develop the Ust-Ilimsk territorial production complex. Today, there are restrictions on the output of power, the station on average gives an output of 32.3% of the declared one. Nevertheless, it remains an important object of the Russian energy system.

Modern units

All units, we recall, there are sixteen of them, have worked for almost more than 40 years. The project of the station provides for two more units, water conduits are laid under them and a place is left. But even sixteen at the time the station was put into operation was enough. In 2017, the impellers of four units were replaced, which will increase electricity generation by 4.5%. The new wheels were manufactured at the Leningrad Metal Plant of the Power Machines concern and weigh 83 tons. And the way from the plant to the station along the Russian roads took almost four months and amounted to about 7 thousand kilometers. One of the old wheels will be put on a pedestal as a commemorative sign.

Satellite city

Ust-Ilimsk has grown from a small village for hydro-builders into a large municipal center of the Irkutsk region with a population of82820 people. And the pride of the residents is the Ust-Ilimskaya hydroelectric power station, the address of which is: 666683, Irkutsk region, the city of Ust-Ilimsk, PO Box 958. This is a city of three shock construction projects of the former Soviet Union: the city itself, a hydroelectric power station and a timber industry complex. This is a city of taiga romance of the 60-70s of the last century, about which Alexandra Pakhmutova sang in a song known throughout the country at one time, “Letter to Ust-Ilimsk.”

Ust-Ilimskaya HPP in art

Besides the mentioned song performed by Maya Kristalinskaya (1963), the city was famous for Alexander Vampilov's story "Ticket to Ust-Ilimsk", which describes the history of this shock construction site. The children's film "The Fifth Quarter", filmed in 1972, about a thirteen-year-old resident of Leningrad Anton, who, instead of going to the sea for summer vacations, came to visit his brother, a hydro-builder in Ust-Ilimsk, dedicated the country's children's population to the life and heroism of taiga builders in particular.

And although today's youth do not know who Maya Kristalinskaya and Alexandra Pakhmutova are, the inhabitants of the city are proud of their dynasties of hydrobuilders and the heroic impact history of their lands. And the Ust-Ilimskaya HPP with its grandeur and scale continues to amaze everyone who first saw this miracle of engineering, will and desire to achieve goals by a person surrounded by the taiga nature of this harsh region.