Verkhnetulomskaya hydroelectric power station

Verkhnetulomskaya HPP is called a unique hydraulic structure, and not only because it is one of the most powerful hydroelectric power plants in the North-West of Russia. There are only about 300 such power plants located entirely underground in the world. But the Verkhnetulomskaya station has its own peculiarities, which are practically not found at other underground hydroelectric power plants.

The station was built by Finnish builders from 1961 to 1966. In 1961, in the upper reaches of the Tuloma River, near the ancient village of Padun, the Finnish company Imatra-Voima began construction of a hydroelectric power plant with a capacity of 228 MW. The place was convenient - there was just a big threshold on the river here: on a stretch of 2.5 kilometers, the drop was 28 meters. The customer of the Verkhnetulomskaya HPP was the construction organization Tulomgesstroy, and it was designed by the institute "Lengidroproekt". The installation of the units was carried out by Soviet specialists. In 1964, the first turbine of the hydroelectric power station was launched, and the entire station was put into operation on October 27, 1965. The new station and the Nizhnetulomskaya HPP, built three decades earlier, became a single cascade.

Verkhnetulomskaya HPP is located inside a huge rock in which Finnish builders cut tunnels with explosives and other devices. The engine room of the station was placed in the depths of the monolith at a 50-meter depth. On the surface, you can see only the administrative building, from which an elevator, a water intake and an open switchgear descend to the engine room.

A dam with a height of 30 meters was erected right in front of the river threshold, and water was sent to four turbines through tunnels cut into the rock. As a result, water falls on the blades of underground turbines from a height of 58.5 meters. During the construction of the hydroelectric power station, about 4 cubic kilometers of soil and 745 thousand cubic meters of rock had to be extracted.

To create the necessary pressure, it was possible to abandon all these tricks, and build a dam downstream of the river. But then the area of the Verkhnetulomsky reservoir (745 square kilometers) would have increased significantly, absorbing all the surrounding settlements. In this case, huge funds would have to be invested in the dam and land works. But in the end, the construction of such a powerful hydroelectric power plant was relatively inexpensive (70 million rubles at 1961 prices), and the station built in this way has increased reliability.