Whakamaru Power Plant
| Whakamaru Power Station | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
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| location | ||
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| Coordinates | 38 ° 25 '10 " S , 175 ° 48' 29" O | |
| country |
 New Zealand
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| place | Waikato region | |
| Waters | Waikato River | |
| power plant | ||
| owner | Mercury NZ Limited | |
| operator | Mercury NZ Limited | |
| construction time | 1949 to 1956 | |
| Start of operation | 1956 | |
| technology | ||
| Bottleneck performance | 100 megawatts | |
| Standard work capacity | 486 million kWh / year | |
| Turbines | Francis turbines 4 × 26.1 MW | |
| Generators | 4 × 25 MW | |
| Others | ||
| Website | www.mercury.co.nz | |
The power plant Whakamaru ( Whakamaru Power Station ) is a hydropower plant on the North Island of New Zealand .
Origin of name
" Whakamaru " continues in the language of the Māori of the words " whaka " and " maru " together and literally means something like, "Protection type" , or "protect" .
geography
The Whakamaru Power Station is the fourth power plant in a chain of eight hydropower plants on the Waikato River . The power plant is located 22 km south-southwest of the city of Tokoroa and can be reached from New Zealand State Highway 30, which runs 250 m to the northeast .
history
Work on the dam began in 1949, but before the actual dam construction work could begin, a 31 m deep and 7 m wide canal was completed over a length of 259 m to keep the water of the Waikato River away from the actual construction site should. To do this, 9200 m³ of rock had to be moved, which alone took three years of construction work. After completing all the work, the first two generators were put into operation in May 1956 and electricity could be fed into the country's power grid. The third generator followed two months later and the fourth generator in the last month of the year.
As of 2020, the power plant will be operated by the majority state-owned company Mercury NZ Limited , formerly Mighty River Power .
Barrier structure
The barrier structure consists of a gravity dam made of 270,000 m³ of concrete and around 1000 t of reinforcing steel on the eastern side and around 69,000 m³ of earth that strengthens the dam on its western side. The foundation work on the dam initially proved to be very difficult, as there were numerous deep cracks in the subsoil, which were also filled with earth that might not have been able to withstand the water pressure. So it was decided to use around 1800 m of access tunnels, which were first created in the rock, to free the cracks and crevices of soft earth material in order to then consolidate and seal the subsoil with cement and concrete. The 28 m high earth dam extends over a length of 412 m, with a width at the foot of the dam that extends up to 110 m. The concrete dam, on the other hand, is 337 m long, 56 m high and has a width of 18 m at its base. The crown of both parts of the barrier structure, over which a road leads, is 9.1 m wide. Four pressure tunnels with a diameter of 5.5 m and a length of 66 m lead the water of the lake to the turbines of the generators. A 7.62 m wide flood relief was carried out west of the power plant.
power plant
The Whakamaru Power Station has an installed capacity of 100 MW and an average annual electricity generation of around 486 GWh . The four generators driven by Francis turbines are designed for an output of 25 MW each. The turbines were supplied by Escher Wyss AG and the generators by General Electric .
Reservoir
With the completion of the barrier structure, the water of the Waikato River was dammed up to Lake Whakamaru . The lake, which extends over an area of 7.4 km², has a usable volume of 11.1 million m³ of water for electricity generation with a variable storage target of 224.35 m to 226.75 m
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c 05. Whakamaru - Overview . Mighty River Power , archived from the original on June 10, 2011 ; accessed on January 8, 2020 (English, original website no longer available).
- ↑ Topo maps . Land Information New Zealand , accessed January 8, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c 05.Whakamaru - Technical . Mighty River Power , archived from the original on June 10, 2011 ; accessed on January 8, 2020 (English, original website no longer available).
- ↑ Hydro Generation . Mercury NZ Limited , accessed January 8, 2020 .
- ^ Whakamaru Hydroelectric Power Plant New Zealand . Global Energy Observatory , accessed July 2, 2015 .
- ↑ STATEMENT OF EVIDENCE OF FRASER SCOTT WHINERAY. (PDF 2.3 MB) Waikato Regional Council, pp. 8-10, 19-20, 24 , archived from the original on January 26, 2015 ; accessed on June 26, 2015 (English, original website no longer available).
- ^ Waikato Lake Levels . Mercury NZ Limited , accessed January 8, 2020 .
