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Tata Power completes 187-MW Shuakhevi hydropower project in Georgia

Tata Power, today during a ceremony in Georgia, announced it has completed construction of its 187-MW Shuakhevi hydropower project located in the Adjara Autonomous Republic. It is the first hydropower project in Georgia certified by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to reduce carbon emissions.
 
Tata Power completes 187-MW Shuakhevi hydropower project in Georgia

Tata Power today during a ceremony in Georgia, announced it has completed construction of its 187-MW Shuakhevi hydropower project located in the Adjara Autonomous Republic. It is the first hydropower project in Georgia certified by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to reduce carbon emissions.

Construction started in fall 2013 and Tata Power said the Shuakhevi project will annually generate about 470 GWh of clean energy while lowering greenhouse gases emissions by more than 200,000 tons per year. It is part of a three-step cascade on the Adjaristskali River, which also consists of the 150-MW Koromkheti and 65-MW Khertvisi hydropower projects.

The project will use water diverted from flows of the upper parts of the Adjaristskali, Skhalta and Chirukhistskali rivers towards the project’s two reservoirs. According to the project’s official description, it will use the Skhalta Dam and its 19.4-hectare (48-acre) reservoir and the Didachara Dam that has a 16.9-hectare (42-acre) reservoir. Its water conveyance system from the reservoirs to the powerhouse consists of three tunnels that have a cumulative length of 33.48 km and 3.75 km of construction adits.

The project at Shuakhevi is the largest hydropower plant built in Georgia in the past 50 years, according to a press release from Tata Power, and its project investment cost exceeded US$420 million.

Tata Power, India’s largest integrated power company, developed the project through Adjaristsqali Georgia LLC. Adjaristsqali Georgia is a joint venture between Tata Power and Norway’s Clean Energy Invest, International Finance Corp., Asian Development Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.