Asia and Oceania

RusHydro, China Three Gorges Corp. sign agreement to operate Nizhne-Bureyskaya hydro plant

JSC RusHydro and China Three Gorges Corp. have signed an agreement on cooperation with a view to establishing a joint venture for operation of the 320-MW Nizhne-Bureyskaya hydro plant.
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RusHydro, China Three Gorges Corp. sign agreement to operate Nizhne-Bureyskaya hydro plant

JSC RusHydro and China Three Gorges Corp. have signed an agreement on cooperation with a view to establishing a joint venture for operation of the 320-MW Nizhne-Bureyskaya hydro plant.

The agreement was signed May 8 by George Rizhinashvili representing RusHydro and Wang Lin representing CTG. This agreement furthers a preliminary agreement on main conditions of forming the joint venture and further preparation of the shareholder agreement for construction of the facility. At that time, the parties agreed to carry out technical, economical and legal due diligence to determine the economic efficiency of the project.

Nizhne-Bureyskaya will be a counter-regulator for the upstream 2,000-MW Bureyskaya hydro plant and will be located on the Bureya River, a tributary of the Amur River, in the Russian Far East. This means it will regulate uneven spills from the Bureyskaya project, as well as help prevent flooding of adjacent towns and local communities.

Construction of the project began in 2010. The powerhouse will contain four turbine-generator units and is expected to produce 1.65 TWh of electricity annually. As of the beginning of 2015, 60% of the concrete volume for the project had been poured. Installation of embedded fittings for the turbines and floodgates has begun. Construction of the spillway and powerhouse will continue in 2015, and construction of the switchyard will begin. Damming of the river is scheduled for March 2016.

Russian equipment manufacturer Power Machines OJSC was awarded the contract to supply the turbine units for Nizhne-Bureyskaya in November 2013.

“As the largest hydropower enterprises in China and Russia, the positive progress we achieved on the project will strengthen the cooperation in hydropower development between the two countries, reinforce the Sino-Russian strategic cooperative partnership and bring benefits to the people in the river valley in both countries,” says Wang.

RusHydro has 38.5 GW of installed electricity generation capacity in more than 70 renewable energy facilities, most of them hydro.

CTG was founded in 1993 as part of the initiative to build the Three Gorges project and develop the Yangtze River. It is a wholly state-owned enterprise and specializes in large-scale hydropower development and operation.