The Dnieper Hydroelectric Station (), also known as the Dnipro Dam, is a

hydroelectric power station Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and also mo ...

in the city of

Zaporizhzhia Zaporizhzhia, formerly known as Aleksandrovsk or Oleksandrivsk until 1921, is a city in southeast Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. It is the Capital city, administrative centre of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Zaporizhzhia ...

, Ukraine. Operated by

Ukrhydroenergo Private JSC «Ukrhydroenergo» () is a Ukrainian state-owned enterprise that administers hydro power plants along the Dnieper and Dniester The Dniester ( ) is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and the ...

, it is the fifth and largest station in the Dnieper reservoir cascade, a series of hydroelectric stations on the

Dnieper The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

river that supply power to the Donets–Kryvyi Rih industrial region. Its dam has a length of , a height of , and a flow rate of per second. The dam elevates the Dnieper river by and maintains the water level of the Dnieper Reservoir, which has a volume of 3.3 km³ and stretches upstream to the nearby city of

Dnipro Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...

. The reservoir's two shipping canals—the disused original one with three staircase locks and a newer one with one staircase lock—allow ships to bypass the dam at its eastern end and sail upstream as far as the

Pripyat River The Pripyat or Prypiat is a river in Eastern Europe. The river, which is approximately long, flows east through Ukraine, Belarus, and into Ukraine again, before draining into the Dnieper at Kyiv Reservoir. Name etymology Max Vasmer notes in h ...

. A highway on the dam and bridge over the shipping canals enable vehicles to cross the Dnieper. The electric station was built by the

Soviet Union 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 ...

from 1927 to 1932. After being destroyed during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

to make it harder for advancing

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

forces to cross the river and to hamstring their occupation by removing 19% of regional network capacity, it was rebuilt from 1944 to 1950. An expansion built from 1969 to 1980 quadrupled the station's output, with further modernization renovations conducted in the 2000s. On 22 March 2024, after the Dnipro Dam was hit by Russian missiles, power output at the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station came to a halt.

History

Early plans

In the lower reaches of the Dnieper River, there was an almost -long stretch that was filled with the Dnieper Rapids. This is approximately the distance between the modern cities

and

. During the 19th century, engineers worked on the projects to make the river navigable. Projects for flooding the rapids were proposed by in 1893, V. Timonov^{( RU)} in 1894, S. Maximov and Genrikh Graftio in 1905, A. Rundo and D. Yuskevich in 1910, I. Rozov and L. Yurgevich in 1912, Mohylko. While the main objective of these projects was to improve navigation,

hydroelectric power Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

generation was developed concurrently, in terms of the "utilization of the freely flowing water". G. Graftio's^{( RU)} 1905 project included three dams with a small area of flooding.

GOELRO plan and construction, 1921–1941

The Dneprostroi Dam was built on vacated land in the countryside at the old river crossing known as Kichkas just north of

Khortytsia Khortytsia (, ) is the largest island on the Dnieper River, and is long and up to wide. The island forms part of the Khortytsia National Reserve. This historic site is located within the city limits of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. The island has ...

island. The reason for building it was to stimulate Soviet industrialization. A special company was formed called Dniprobud or Dneprostroi (hence the dam's alternative name) that later built other dams on the

and exists to this day. The design for the dam that was accepted dates back to 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 ...

GOELRO GOELRO () was the first of Soviet Russia's plans for national economic recovery and development. It became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans drafted by Gosplan. GOELRO is the transliteration of the Russian abbreviation for "State Commi ...

electrification Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. In the context of history of technology and economic development, electrification refe ...

plan which was adopted in the early 1920s. The station was designed by a group of engineers headed by Prof.

Ivan Alexandrov Ivan Gavrilovich Alexandrov (Russian: Ива́н Гаври́лович Алекса́ндров; 1 September Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>O.S. 21 August1875 – 2 May 1936) was a Russian Empire">Russian and Soviet Union" ...

, a chief expert of GOELRO, who later became a head of the RSFSR State Planning Commission. The station was planned to provide electricity for several

aluminium Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

production plants and a high quality iron and steel plant that were also to be constructed in the area. The DniproHES project used the experience gained from the construction of the Sir Adam Beck Hydroelectric Power Stations at

Niagara Falls Niagara Falls is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the Canada–United States border, border between the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York (s ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, the Hydroelectric Island Maligne,

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, and the La Gabelle Generating Station on the St. Maurice River. On 17 September 1932, the Soviet government awarded six American engineers (including Hugh Cooper, William V. Murphy, and G. Thompson, engineers of General Electric) with the

Order of the Red Banner of Labour The Order of the Red Banner of Labour () was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to the Soviet state and society in the fields of production, science, culture, literature, the arts, education, sports ...

for "the outstanding work in the construction of DniproHES". Soviet industrialization was accompanied by a wide propaganda effort.

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

, by then out of power, campaigned for the idea within the ruling

Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the highest organ of the central committee in communist parties. The term is also sometimes used to refer to similar organs in socialist and Islamist parties, such as the UK Labour Party's NEC or the Poli ...

in early 1926. In a speech to the

Komsomol The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), although it w ...

youth movement, he said: :In the south the Dnieper runs its course through the wealthiest industrial lands; and it is wasting the prodigious weight of its pressure, playing over age-old rapids and waiting until we harness its stream, curb it with dams, and compel it to give lights to cities, to drive factories, and to enrich ploughland. We shall compel it! The dam and its buildings were designed by the

constructivist architects Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in the Soviet Union in t ...

Viktor Vesnin and Nikolai Kolli. Construction began in 1927, and the plant started to produce electricity in October 1932. Generating about 560 MW, the station became the largest Soviet power plant at the time and the third-largest in the world, following the

Hoover Dam The Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado, Black Canyon of the Colorado River (U.S.), Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. Constructed between 1931 and 1936, d ...

, 705 MW, and the

Wilson Dam Wilson Dam is a dam on the Tennessee River in Lauderdale and Colbert counties of Alabama, United States. Completed in 1924 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, it impounds Wilson Lake, and is one of nine Tennessee Valley Authority (T ...

, 663 MW, in the United States. American specialists under the direction of Col. Hugh Cooper took part in the construction. The first five giant power generators were manufactured by the

General Electric Company The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and Arms industry, defence electronics, communications, and engineering. It was originally founded in 1886 as G. Binswanger and Company as an e ...

. During the second five-year plan, four more generators of similar power that were produced by Elektrosila in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

were installed. The Dneprostroi Dam was the largest dam in Europe at the time of its construction. The industrial centres of

, Kryvy Rih, and

grew from the power provided by the station, including such electricity-consuming industries as aluminium production, which was vitally important for

Soviet 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 ...

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...

World War II and post-war reconstruction

During

, the strategically important dam and plant were dynamited by retreating

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

troops in 1941 after Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. American journalist

H. R. Knickerbocker Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker (January 31, 1898 – July 12, 1949) was an American journalist and author; winner of the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence for his series of articles on the practical operation of the Five Year Plan in the Sovie ...

wrote that year: The resulting flood killed between 20,000 and 100,000 civilians, along with Red Army officers crossing the river at the time. While a second attempt at dynamiting the dam by retreating German troops in 1943 was averted, the dam remained extensively damaged, with the powerhouse hall was nearly destroyed. Both were rebuilt between 1944 and 1949.

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

shipped three new 90 MW generators for the dam in 1946, replacing the 77.5 MW generators destroyed during World War II. Hydro-electric Generator for Russia's Dnieprostroi Dam, 1945
Image #21.009. Science Service Historical Image Collection. National Museum of American History. Smithsonian Institution, accessed 4 March 2022 Each generator weighed over 1,021 tonnes and had a frame diameter of . Power generation was restarted in 1950, with a second powerhouse built from 1969 to 1980, expanding production capacity by 828 MW.

Independent Ukraine

In the spring of 2016, all

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

symbols (including the sign that stated that the dam was named after

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

) were removed from the dam in order to comply with decommunization laws. On 22 March 2024, the dam and its power station was struck by eight missiles launched by Russia as part of a massive attack on energy infrastructure across Ukraine. The attack caused damage to the dam's structure, although officials said there was no risk of a breach. The head of the Ukrainian state-owned energy company

, , said that the Hydroelectric Power Station-2 (HPS-2), one of the dam's two power stations, was in critical condition after being struck directly by two missiles, damaging crane girders and a support pillar. A trolleybus travelling along the dam's roadway was also struck, setting it on fire and forcing the closure of the dam to motorists. One person was reported to have been killed in the attack. The attack led to the station losing a third of its generation capacity and Hr 159,305 ($4,100) in damage to water resources, as well as a suspension of water intake in Bilenke, downstream from the dam. Ukrhydroenergo said that restoration works on the dam would take "years". Environmental damage caused by the attack was estimated to be at least $3.5 million. On 12 April 2024, the dam caught on fire as a result of drone strikes launched by Russia. The fire caused around half a tonne of oil products leaking into the

Dnieper River The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

. The facility was again left in a "critical state" following another Russian attack on 1 June.

Gallery

File:Дніпрогес, гребля. Хортиця.jpg, File:Туман над Дніпром.jpg, File:Гребля і силова станція Дніпрогес-1.jpg, File:Гребля і силова станція Дніпрогес-2.jpg, File:Дніпровський шлюз 2.jpg, File:Запорожье. Днепр. Новый шлюз - panoramio - Serge McKenna.jpg, File:Дніпрогес з дрона.jpg, File:DniproHES010.JPG,

References

External links

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//

Encyclopedia of Ukraine The ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'' (), published from 1984 to 2001, is a fundamental work of Ukrainian Studies. Development The work was created under the auspices of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Europe (Sarcelles, near Paris). As the ...

*
Information from site dedicated to 85th anniversary of GOERLO
*
Official website of Ukrhydroenergy

Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station, photographs by Georges Dedoyard, 1932

Canadian Centre for Architecture The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA; ) is a Architecture museum, museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 1920, rue Baile (1920, Baile Street), between rue Fort (Fort Street) and rue Saint-Ma ...

digitized items
*
The explosion of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station
*
The Russian invaders launched a missile attack on the Dnipro HPP - the dam structures are being inspected
{{Authority control Dams in Ukraine Hydroelectric power stations built in the Soviet Union Hydroelectric power stations in Ukraine Companies based in Zaporizhzhia Buildings and structures in Zaporizhzhia Constructivist architecture Dams completed in 1932 State companies of Ukraine Dams on the Dnieper Tourist attractions in Zaporizhzhia Dniprovskyi District, Zaporizhzhia