Bersimis-1 hydropower plant

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Bersimis-1 hydropower plant
Satellite image of the Pipmuacan Reservoir, which supplies the water for the power station
Satellite image of the Pipmuacan Reservoir, which supplies the water for the power station
location
Bersimis-1 hydropower plant (Québec)
Bersimis-1 hydropower plant
Coordinates 49 ° 18 '32 "  N , 69 ° 33' 46"  W Coordinates: 49 ° 18 '32 "  N , 69 ° 33' 46"  W.
country Canada
Waters Rivière Betsiamites ( Pipmuacan Reservoir )
Data
Type Storage power plant
Primary energy Hydropower
power 1178 MW
owner Hydro Quebec
Project start 1953
Start of operations 1956
f2

The hydropower plant Bersimis-1 ( French: Centrale Bersimis-1 ) is a storage power plant in the Canadian province of Québec . It is located on the Rivière Betsiamites in the Côte-Nord region and is fed by the Réservoir Pipmuacan . The power plant has eight Francis turbines , the installed capacity of the generators is 1,178  MW at a drop height of 266.7 meters. The power plant is operated by the state-owned energy supply company Hydro-Québec .

history

Preliminary planning

The economic boom of the post-war period resulted in an unforeseen increase in electricity demand in Québec. Hydro-Québec sought to meet the demand by all means. This first happened with the expansion of existing power plants such as Beauharnois . The then still independent Shawinigan Water and Power Company (SWP) also expanded its capacities. In addition, the company's management tried to convince the provincial government to grant the SWP water use concessions for rivers that have not yet been developed .

The SWP was particularly interested in promising rivers in the Côte-Nord region . Shawinigan Engineering, the subsidiary responsible for engineering, recognized the hydropower potential in 1948 and secretly carried out preliminary project studies for a 746 MW power plant on the Rivière Betsiamites. According to the calculations, the construction work would amount to $ 168 per kW - deep enough to offset the additional costs for the transmission lines to the metropolis of Montreal .

But the provincial government had other plans and awarded the water usage concession to the state-owned company Hydro-Québec in September 1951. This decision by the Duplessi government had far-reaching consequences for the future of the SWP. In 1963, the SWP was finally taken over by Hydro-Québec. In retrospect, this decision was a crucial stage in the nationalization of Quebec's electricity industry . He made it possible for Hydro-Québec to become the most important, if not the only, developer of hydropower plants in Québec.

Construction work

Construction work began in June 1953, whereby the necessary infrastructure first had to be provided in order to be able to realize a project of this size in the remote area. Among other things, a quay and a warehouse on the St. Lawrence River as well as a 230-kilometer access road into the unpopulated hinterland were built in Forestville . All building materials, food for 5,000 workers and the cement were brought to Forestville by barge, where they were transferred to trucks and transported to the construction site. The two-lane road is now integrated into Québec's main road network and is called Route 385 .

Before work on the dam and the power plant could begin, a stable power supply had to be built. From November 1952 to July 1953, Hydro-Québec built a temporary 12 MW hydropower plant near Lac Cassé. The systems required for this came from the small Saint-Timothée hydropower station near Montreal, which was demolished in 1949. In June 1953, construction began on the Labrieville workers' settlement , consisting of 117 houses, a school, a church, a hostel, and an administrative and shopping center. The first resident moved in on November 16, 1953, the village was completed in 1955. Technological advances made the village obsolete and Hydro-Québec closed Labrieville in 1974.

In October 1953, the actual work on the power plant began. Two stone embankments were built to create a reservoir that brought the surface of the lakes Lac Pipmuacan and Lac Cassé to 750 km². The first with a length of 674 m and a height of 74 m was built between two mountains that border Lac Cassé. The second, 315 m long dam allowed the water level of the Rivière Desroches to be regulated. Large amounts of clay were required to waterproof the core of the dams. A sufficiently large amount had been found in the vicinity by the engineers of the preparatory work, thanks to a tip from the indigenous people who had seen beavers laying a store of clay for the construction of the beaver dams. A hill between the two dams was leveled to create the flood relief for the reservoir. In 1952, Alcan had used a similar process in the construction of the Kenney Dam in British Columbia .

The underground hydropower plant was built twelve kilometers from the main dam. A concrete extraction structure 9.4 meters in diameter was driven into the granite of the Canadian Shield to carry the water to the eight turbines 267 meters below. The advance was 223 m per week. The Francis turbines are located in a 171 m long, 24 m wide and 21 m high cavern . The over 600 km long overhead line to Montreal is one of the first in North America to be designed for a voltage of 315 kV .

When it was commissioned in 1956, the power plant had an output of 912 MW. Between 1994 and 2003 Hydro-Québec renewed the turbines. Part of the Rivière Manouan was then diverted. This enabled the water flow to be increased by 30.8 m³ / s and the amount of energy produced by 378 GWh (including Bersimis-2). The $ 90 million project required the construction of a 9 m high and 90 m long dam, a flood relief, three levees and a diversion canal.

literature

  • WJW McNaughton: Bersimis: la mise en valeur d'une rivière . In: Canadian Geographical Journal . Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Ottawa 1960.
  • Claude Bellavance: Shawinigan Water and Power (1898–1963): Formation et déclin d'un groupe industriel au Québec . Éditions Boréal, Montreal 1994, ISBN 2-89052-586-4 .
  • André Bolduc, Clarence Hogue, Daniel Larouche: Hydro-Québec, l'héritage d'un siècle d'électricité . Libre Expression, Montreal 1989, ISBN 2-89111-388-8 .
  • Jean-Jacques Archambault : Hydro-Québec: Des premiers défis à l'aube de l'an 2000 . Ed .: Marcel Couture. Forces / Libre Expression, Montreal 1984, ISBN 2-89111-191-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Centrales hydroélectriques. Hydro-Québec , December 31, 2010, accessed March 13, 2012 (French).
  2. ^ McNaughton: Bersimis. P. 118.
  3. ↑ Bellavance: Shawinigan Water and Power. Pp. 168-173.
  4. ↑ Bellavance: Shawinigan Water and Power. P. 173.
  5. ^ McNaughton: Bersimis. P. 119.
  6. ↑ Bellavance: Shawinigan Water and Power. P. 176.
  7. ↑ a b c Jos Benoît: Bersimis. In: Trait d'union, Commission hydroélectrique de Québec, vol. 1, no 7, July 1954.
  8. ^ McNaughton: Bersimis. P. 123.
  9. ^ Ian McNaughton: Beauharnois. Hydro-Québec, Montreal 1970.
  10. ^ Bolduc, Hogue, Larouche: Hydro-Québec, l'héritage d'un siècle d'électricité. P. 137.
  11. ^ McNaughton: Bersimis. Pp. 115-116.
  12. ^ McNaughton: Bersimis. P. 127.
  13. ^ McNaughton: Bersimis. Pp. 127-129.
  14. ^ Archambault: Hydro-Québec. Pp. 126-127.
  15. ^ Bolduc, Hogue, Larouche: Hydro-Québec, l'héritage d'un siècle d'électricité. P. 136.
  16. ↑ La dérivation partial de la rivière Manouane est réalisée grâce à des ouvrages en BCR. (PDF, 2.01 MB) (No longer available online.) In: Synergie, Volume 3, No. 1. Ciment Québec, March 2004, pp. 10–15 , archived from the original on March 12, 2012 ; Retrieved March 14, 2012 (French).