Kafue dam
| Kafue dam | |||||||
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| Coordinates | 15 ° 48 ′ 30 ″ S , 28 ° 25 ′ 15 ″ E | ||||||
| Data on the structure | |||||||
| Construction time: | 1964-1971 | ||||||
| Height above valley floor: | 50 m | ||||||
| Height above foundation level : | 58 m | ||||||
| Height of the structure crown: | 978 m | ||||||
| Power plant output: | 900 MW | ||||||
| Data on the reservoir | |||||||
| Altitude (at congestion destination ) | 976.6 m | ||||||
| Water surface | approx. 20 km² | ||||||
| Storage space | 765 million m³ | ||||||
| Catchment area | 157,000 km² | ||||||
The Kafue Gorge Dam is a hydropower plant in Zambia .
use
The Kafue reservoir is used to generate electricity and provide irrigation. The initial output of the hydropower plant was 600 MW, since the expansion in 1972 it has been 900 MW. The river has an annual average water volume of 280 m³ / s.
From the water flow serve:
- 215 m³ / s of electricity generation (ZESCO),
- 8.3 m³ / s of irrigation of state sugar cane fields (Zambia Sugar Company),
- 2.4 m³ / s of irrigation of private sugar cane fields,
- 4.5 m³ / s in industry and private households (Lusaka Urban District Council),
- 25.0 m³ / s the ecologically necessary constant flow.
concept
Because of its own small storage capacity, the Kafue dam is integrated into a system of several dams. These include the upstream Itezhitezhi Dam in the Kafue National Park , which, in addition to generating 80 MW of electricity with a storage capacity of 4,925 million m³, is intended for the continuous inflow to the Kafue Dam, and the Lower Lower, which is in planning, downstream of the Kafue Dam -Kafue-Schlucht-Dam, which is supposed to use the 200 m difference in altitude to generate electricity. 750 MW are planned. The plant is scheduled to go into operation in 2019.
politics
The construction of the dams on the Kafue has political causes. In terms of energy generation, Zambia wanted to become independent of the Kariba dam , which it shared with white Rhodesia at the time . Since the extraction of copper is very energy-intensive, Zambia feared for its state revenues.
Dimensions
The size of the water surface of the Kafue reservoir is unclear. The area is significantly smaller than that of the neighboring Itezhitezhi reservoir, which has an area of 340 to 370 km². The 340 km², 809 km² or around 1000 km² given in existing sources cannot be correct. The actual water surface according to the satellite image could be around 20 km².
See also
Web links
- Hydrosystem Kafue (PDF file)
- Restoring the Kafue Flats (PDF file; 115 kB)
- The Kafue Lower Project (p.17) (PDF file; 1.15 MB)
- Kafue dam data .