DUSHANBE, October 13, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- Ukrainian type transport aircraft Ruslan has airlifted an 82-ton water wheel for the Norak hydroelectric power station (HPS) to the Dushanbe airport today morning.

Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Nozirjon Yodgori, a spokesman for Barqi Tojik (Tajik electric systems) power holding, said that Barqi Tojik’s transportation service will begin transportation of the wheel to the Norak HPS site already today.  The wheel is expected to be transported to the Norak HPS in two days.

The water wheel was manufactured at the scientific production association in Sumy, Ukraine.  Yodgori reminded that in Mid-July this year, they replaced the water wheel at Unit 3 of the station that allowed increasing the station capacity by 160 megawatt.  According to him, replacement of water wheels will also raise safety of operation of the plant.

The Norak Dam is a large earth fill dam located on the Vakhsh River.  At 300 meters it is currently the tallest dam in the world.  Construction of the dam began in 1961 and was completed in 1980, when Tajikistan was still a republic within the Soviet Union.

A total of nine hydroelectric turbines are installed in the Norak Dam. Originally having a generating capacity of 300 megawatts each (2,700 megawatts total), they have since been redesigned and retrofitted such that they now combine to produce 3,000 megawatts.  The station’s capacity is 11.2 billion kWh of electrical power per year.