The Owen Falls was a

waterfall A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in severa ...

on the White Nile in

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...

near the city of Jinja. The falls, together with the nearby

Ripon Falls Ripon Falls at the northern end of Lake Victoria in Uganda was formerly considered the source of the river Nile. In 1862–3 John Hanning Speke Captain John Hanning Speke (4 May 1827 – 15 September 1864) was an English explorer and offi ...

, were submerged in 1954 with the completion of the Nalubaale Hydroelectric Power Station. The dam that houses the power station was originally named Owen Falls Dam, but was later renamed Nalubaale Dam and the name of the power station was also changed, from Owen Falls Power Station to

Nalubaale Power Station Nalubaale Power Station, formerly known as Owen Falls Dam, is a hydroelectric power station across the White Nile near its source at Lake Victoria in Uganda. ''Nalubaale'' is the Luganda name for Lake Victoria. Location The dam sits across the N ...

Location

The waterfalls were located approximately , north (downstream), of the point where the river leaves Lake Victoria. This is the location of Nalubaale Dam, previously called Owen Falls Dam. The geographical location of the former Owen Falls are:00°26'37.0"N, 33°11'05.0"E (Latitude:0.443611; Longitude:33.184722).

The power station

The original Owen Falls Power Station consisted of a concrete gravity dam with a close coupled intake powerhouse unit. It controls the Lake Victoria outflows through a series of ten

turbines A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful Work (physics), work. The work produced by a turbine can be used ...

and six sluices in the dam. When fully opened, the six sluices provide a spill capacity of about 1,200

cubic metres per second A cubic metre per second (m3s−1, m3/s, cumecs or cubic meter per second in American English) is the unit of volumetric flow rate in the International System of Units (SI) equal to that of a stere or cube with sides of in length exchanged ...

(cumecs). At the time of its commissioning by Queen Elizabeth II, in 1954, the power station had two units of 15 megawatts each, for generation capacity of 30 megawatts. The table below illustrates how generation capacity was gradually increased until all ten units were operational in 1968. That year, generation capacity at the power station reached 150 megawatts.

Operations and upgrade

According to agreements between the Colonial British government and the

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, signed in 1929 and amended in 1949, the power station is operated through the ''Agreed Curve'', so that the outflow from Lake Victoria remains the same as it was before the construction of the dam; when the outflow from the lake was naturally controlled by the rocky barrier of mukkibi falls. Due to neglect and lack of maintenance from 1971 until 1986, generation capacity at Owen Falls Dam deteriorated to 60 megawatts by 1986. This required repairs and rehabilitation, including the increase of each turbine's capacity from 15 megawatts to 18 megawatts, to meet demand. The power station's generation capacity reached 180 megawatts in 1996.

Extension

The feasibility of increasing the power generating capacity of the Nile River at this location, was studied at the end of the 1980s by ''Acres International'', which today is part of

Hatch Ltd Hatch is a global multidisciplinary management, engineering and development consultancy. Its group companies have more than 9,000 staff in 70+ offices. In 2015, Hatch was ranked as a top 20 International Design Firm according to the Engineering N ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The new project is a second powerhouse located about northeast of the

. A new canal was cut to bring water from Lake Victoria to the new powerhouse. Major construction was completed in 1999. The first power from two units out of the installed five units, came online in 2000. The fifth and final turbine was installed in 2007. Each turbine has a capacity of 40 megawatts. The new power station is called

Kiira Hydroelectric Power Station Kiira Hydroelectric Power Station, is a hydroelectric power station in Uganda, with an installed capacity of . Location The power station is located at Kimaka, a northern suburb of Jinja, in Jinja District, in the Eastern Region of Uganda, ...

References

External links