The Cheboksary Dam (, ''Cheboksary GES'') is a hydroelectric dam on the

Volga river The Volga (, ) is the longest river in Europe and the longest endorheic basin river in the world. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchment ...

, the latest of the Volga-Kama Cascade of dams.

Technical data

Construction started in the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in 1968 and mostly completed by 1986. The complex consists of a power plant built on dam 548 m long, concrete spillway dam 120 m long, earth fill dams with a total length of 3355 m, and a single-chamber two-lane lock. The total water front length is 4480 m. Installed power is 1404 MW, designed average annual production is 3310 GWh, but actual annual production is 2100 GWh due to lowered reservoir level. The power house has 18 generator units with

Kaplan turbine The Kaplan turbine is a propeller-type water turbine which has adjustable blades. It was developed in 1913 by Austrian professor Viktor Kaplan, who combined automatically adjusted propeller blades with automatically adjusted wicket gates to a ...

s, each 78 MW at 12.4 m head. The dam forms Cheboksary Reservoir with surface area of 2182 km².

Reservoir level problem

The station began to work in 1981 with normal water level lowered to 63 m above sea level. Most of flooded land belonged to

Mari El Mari El,; ; officially the Mari El Republic, is a republics of Russia, republic of Russia. It is in the European Russia, European region of the country, along the northern bank of the Volga River, and administratively part of the Volga Federal ...

Republic. Flooded land included valuable meadows and several hundred acres ( hectares ) of oak forest that was not duly felled. Rising normal water level to the design value of 68 m was hindered first by incomplete reservoir banks protection, then being opposed by

Nizhny Novgorod Oblast Nizhny Novgorod Oblast () is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Nizhny Novgorod. It has a population of 3,119,115 as of the 2021 Ru ...

and

Republic. Now the station is operating at 63 m water level, with an actual installed power of 820 MW and an average annual production of 2100 GWh. Also lowered level poses difficulties to navigation on the Volga river between

Nizhny Novgorod Nizhny Novgorod ( ; rus, links=no, Нижний Новгород, a=Ru-Nizhny Novgorod.ogg, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj ˈnovɡərət, t=Lower Newtown; colloquially shortened to Nizhny) is a city and the administrative centre of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast an ...

and Gorodets, with allowed draught down to 3 m, whereas it is 4 m on other parts of the Volga.Прогноз глубин по ЕГС (in Russian)
Water quality in reservoir degrades because shallow waters comprise 33% of its area instead of the designed 19%. The water level problem is still being discussed. Further water level rise will cause flood of vast areas of

and

, including most part of

between the Oka and the Volga rivers.

References

{{Volga River Dams in Russia Hydroelectric power stations built in the Soviet Union Hydroelectric power stations in Russia Dams completed in 1986 Dams on the Volga River 1986 establishments in Russia es:Embalse de Cheboksary

Technical data

Reservoir level problem

See also

References