65th Anniversary Day of the Vuoksa HPPs Cascade of JSC TGC-1
On August 5, 2014, the Vuoksa HPPs Cascade of JSC TGC-1 celebrates its 65th anniversary day.
The first cascade of the Leningrad Oblast which unified the Rouhiala HPP (Lesogorskaya HPP) and the Enso HPP (Svetogorskaya HPP), started its operations long before the issue of official decree of the Ministry of Energy of the USSR Nr.235 dated August 5, 1949.
The power plants located on the border of Russia and Finland were built by Finnish and Soviet engineers: the Rouhiala-Lesogorskaya HPP was commissioned in 1937, and the Enso-Svetogorskaya HPP was put into operation in 1947. In 1910-1940s the HPPs have undergone several reconstructions to what stands today. Next to the Rouhiala and Enso HPPs, there were pulp and paper mills that needed electric power. The generation capacity increased, and the needs of local production plants were continuously growing.
In 1939 – 1945, the power plants survived the Soviet-Finnish and the Great Patriotic Wars: the power plants were passing from one party to another together with the Karelian Isthmus area. However they continued their operations to meet the load needs.
— For many years the Svetogorskaya HPP and the Lesogorskaya HPP have been reliable sources of power supply to the Karelian Isthmus area and the key factor of stable development of the Leningrad Oblast industries, - says Vasiliy Pustohod, Director of the Vuoksa HPP Cascade. — The Vuoksa HPPs Cascade unifies the past, present and future of the power industry. The history of the Vuoksa HPPs Cascade shows that a close-knit team is a guarantee of long-term failure-free operations. We may only be proud of such personnel! Excellent professionals pass their knowledge and unique expertise to next generations, thus accumulating their skills and knowledge and carefully keeping the best practices and traditions.
In 2007 – 2013, the Vuoksa HPPs Cascade of JSC TGC-1 has undergone large-scale renovation, which resulted in increase of the generating capacity, improvement of the power plants reliability, the HPPs control system automation and significant reduction of environmental load on the Vuoksa water pool. According to the unique project design, reconstruction of the hydro generating buildings and facilities was not necessary for installation of the new equipment. As a result, the retrofit helped to increase the installed electric capacity of the Cascade up to 240 MW.