Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Plant

(full name, 50th anniversary of Great October Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Plant), one of the world’s biggest hydroelectric power plants. It was built on the Angara River at the Padun rapids, near the city of Bratsk in Irkutsk Oblast, RSFSR. Construction began in 1955, and in 1961 the first four hydroelectric units were put into operation. The rated capacity of the hydroelectric power plant is 4, 500 megawatts, and the average annual power output is 22.7 billion kilowatt hours. By 1967 the capacity of the plant had reached 4, 100 megawatts. The building of the hydroelectric power plant contains 16 generating units with a capacity of 225 megawatts each and two generating units of 250 megawatts each. The turbines are vertical radial-axial with a pressure of 100 m and a revolution frequency of 125 revolutions per minute. The hydroelectric installation includes a channel concrete dam of the gravitational type, 924 m long, with a maximum construction height of 124.5 m, consisting of a station site (515 m long containing 20 water intake apertures and pressure pipelines), a weir (242 m long, with ten water exhaust apertures), and blanks of a total length of 167 m; the building of the hydroelectric power plant, 516 m long, located at the lower limit of the station site of the dam and adjacent to the left bank; concrete shore dams of a total length of 506 m; the right bank earth dam, 2, 987 m long, and the left bank dam, 723 m long; and open distribution devices for a pressure of 220 to 500 kilowatts (kW), located on the left bank of the Angara. The Taishet-Lena railroad passes on the crest of the dam, and below there is a highway. The pumping installations, of a total length of 5, 140 m, form the Bratsk Water Reservoir. Navigation installations are part of the secondary construction stage.

Simultaneously with the construction of the hydroelectric power plant, which is far from industrial centers, a mighty construction industry base was created, and a large complex of enterprises of the Bratsk industrial region and the city of Bratsk were built. The power generated by the electric power plant is transmitted via 220 and 550 kW high-voltage lines to the Irkutsk-Cheremkhovo industrial region, to the Krasnoiarsk region, and to the unified power system of Eastern Siberia. Upon the call of the Party and the komsomol, thousands of young men and women workers took part in the construction of the hydroelectric power plant, serving as models of highly productive labor. The industrial workers considered the fulfillment of orders for the Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Plant a matter of honor. Government awards have been conferred on many workers of the construction project.