From 10th to 12th October 2016 in Montreux (Switzerland) was The Conference HYDRO 2016. It is the most important event in Hydroenergetic branch in Europe and over the world. At this conference companies work on hydropower and connected with this branch presented their solutions, experiences and new plans. At the Lake Geneva talked about chances and problems this more and more popular energy source. (more…)

Autumn in hydropower is often the necessity of post-seasonal repairs. As usual, a major part of our volume is work for hydropower. In recent weeks, it was the PGE Dychów Power Plant (88 MW) and PGE Solina (199 MW) as well as the Bulgarian Koprinka Hydroelectric Power Plant (29.4 MW), located near the town of Stara Zagora. Scopes of work were similar and often performed once more: machining on large diameters. How it done in hydropower

This time, the only underground hydroelectric power plant in Poland, operated by PGE. The scope of work typical for our company: machining flanges from large diameters.

A small power plant with two Kaplan turbines with a total capacity of 18MW. The current modernization will allow for an additional 1 MW/ unit. In our scope a.o. the machining of the runner chamber. More: Our Hydro Services | WWTECH – On site machining For machining all flat, cylindrical, toroidal and spherical surfaces, we used the KWW525 machine tool. Read more: The Machines | WWTECH – On site machining Note: This photo is composed of two photographs. This is the only way to show the whole machine tool.

Nalubaale Power Station, formerly known as Owen Falls Dam, is a hydroelectric power station across the White Nile near to its source at Lake Victoria in Jinja district. Its Location coordinates are: Latitude= 0.443525, Longitude= 33.1847 respectively. It is the oldest hydropower station in Uganda commissioned in 1954. It was renamed Nalubaale by H.E Excellency Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the president of Uganda in 2001. Originally Owen falls dam was designed for ten turbines rated at 15 megawatts (20,000 hp) each (a total of 150 megawatts (200,000 hp). In the the 1990s, the station was refurbished to repair the accumulated wear from a decade of civil disorder. During the repairs, the output power of the generators was increased, bringing the Nalubaale Power Complex’s generating capacity to 180 megawatts (240,000 hp). Due to the location – distance and lack of technical and logistical facilities, apart from technical challenges, the project was a huge logistical challenge. Our scope concerned the repair of the Kaplan turbine hub at the place of the blade seat. After years of operation, the sealing surfaces were destroyed by corrosion and erosion. Therefore, the customer has decided to repair the damaged edges by installing new fragments in the form of shrinking and welded rings, which were then machined to the original, correct shape. Our scope included: machining grooves for the rings embedding in five holes – turbine blade sockets, ring embedding (these rings were also manufactured by us and delivered to Uganda), final machining after welding (welding performed by an external company), grinding of internal diameters to obtain the desired tolerance and roughness parameters. The Machining Power Station and landscapes

Bujagali Power Plant is a hydroelectric power plant on the Victoria Nile, a place considered the beginning of the great Nile River – near the beautiful Bujagali Falls in Uganda. Construction began in 2007 and was completed in 2012. The power plant has a capacity of 250 megawatts. The Bujagali Power Plant was uganda’s largest source of energy when it was commissioned. GE supplied all electromechanical equipment – including five Kaplan turbine-generator units with a capacity of 50 MW each, control and protection systems and other power plant equipment. GE’s Kaplan turbines feature adjustable rotor blades and adjustable steering blades that enable them to efficiently deliver power over a wide range of flows, where river flows vary greatly depending on the season. More about power plant equipment: Bujagali – Flawless project execution | GE Renewable Energy About the Bujagali hydropower project – AKDN This time, at the invitation of GE, we performed three tasks: removal of blocked screws, reaming threads in the ceiling position, on a several-meter-high platform. a Ø500 shaftt in the hub of Kaplan’s turning to remove the seizures. The cavities were welded, after which we reworked the surfacing area. complex machining of the servo motor body (device responsible for the position of the Kaplan turbine blades): cylindrical Ø560, Ø 900, frontal surfaces, and above all the insertion of the insertion press-fit bushing on the diameter of Ø560. The task would be almost standard, if not for the fact that the processing took place in a concrete pipe channel, 15 meters below the surface, and the only entrance was so tight that the oil aggregate had to stay outside. The machine tools also had to be adapted to be moved through a tight communication channel. The machining was preceded by dismantling the device; in terms of also usuwe pounded blocked screws. Then, after exposing the machining site, we installed a machine tool of our own design – OTM (Orbital Turning Machine). And here is the end result: Place of processing of the servo motor body – water channel. Processing of the servo motor body. Since the customer did not agree to weld the fastening structure of the machine tool, we installed it using special clamps. And here is the end result: Power plant and surroundings

Hydroelectric power plant of Chaira (Chaira PSHPP) was built in the Rila Mountains, about 100 kilometers southeast of the Bulgarian capital, Sofia. Chaira has a generating capacity of 864 megawatts (1,159,000 HP) and a pumping capacity of 788 megawatts (1,057,000 HP). The plant is equipped with four reversible Francis-type pump-turbines, each with a power of 216 megawatts (290,000 HP) in generating mode and 197 megawatts (264,000 HP) in pumping mode. Units 1 and 2 have been in operation since 1995, and during that time, Chaira was the largest pumped-storage power plant in southeastern Europe, with the highest single-stage pump-turbine drop in the world (690 meters in generating mode and 701 meters in pumping mode). Units 3 and 4 were commissioned in 1999. The pump-turbines and generators were supplied by Toshiba, with three of them produced in Bulgaria under Japanese supervision. The upper reservoir for Chaira is created by the Belmeken dam, which connects to the pumped-storage power plant via two 4.2-meter diameter penstocks and two 4.4-meter diameter pipelines, reducing to 4.2 meters. Water flowing from the Belmeken reservoir supplies the Sestrimo hydroelectric power plant (Wikipedia). This time, the scope differs from the other projects of the year: milling of the spillway edge guides. For this purpose, a special machine tool has been designed and built.

Bjufors HPP, a power plant owned by Statkraft, is located on the Umealven River in northern Sweden. It consists of two units with a total power of 42 MW. Similar to Bergvik, in 2023, we carried out mobile machining services at Bjufors for Unit 1, and this year, the same scope of work is being performed for Unit 2. The scope includes: machining of the rotor chamber (spherical surface).