Upper Kotmale Hydro Power Project

Name Index No Date of field visit

: O. S. D. De Silva : 090095A : 08/09/2011 09/09/2011

Date of submission : 23/09/2011

Introduction
As a developing country, Sri Lanka is lacking sufficient power generation to meet the annual growth of power demand which is about 7-8%. At present only about 68% of the population of the country has the access to national grid supply. The growth of the power generation is closely interconnected with the economy. To meet the economic challenges and to enhance the lives of the people power generation capacity has to be increased. It is a proud fact compared to other countries that a considerably large percentage of power generation of Sri Lanka is done using renewable energy which is mainly hydro power. As the world is moving forward to more clean and renewable energy it is a good practice to build up hydro power plants as much as possible to meet the growth of power demand. As far as the geography is concerned in Sri Lanka, there are many locations which have the potential of generating hydro power. Upper Kotmale is most likely to have the last large scale hydro power generating potential. The potential of Upper Hydro Power was identified in 1967 but the construction approval lagged until 2005 due to various environmental issues. The project site is situated in Talawakele, within the Nuwara Eliya district in the Central Province. The Upper Kotmale Power Project has a run off type dam blocking the kotmale oya. This project is about to add 150MW to the national grid from December 2011.

Overview of the project

The Upper Kotmale project is funded by the Government of Japan. The basic project cost is about Rs. 37269 million. This plant is equipped with two Francis turbines which give a plant capacity of 150 MW (275 MW) and generate 409GWh of annual energy.

The Talawakelle Regulating Pond Catchment area Full supply level (FSL) : 397.2km2 : 1194m Mean Sea Level

Minimum operating level (MOL) : 1190m Mean Sea Level Storage volume Surface area : 0.8MCM : 0.25km2

DAM (at Talawakele) Type Height Width Long Spillway gates : Concrete gravity, run off type : 35.5m : 7m : 157m :5

Transmission Line 220kV double circuit, 15.5Km Switch yard: Gas insulated Switchgear

Power House (at Niyamgamdora) Type Turbine Rated head Maximum discharge Installed capacity Annual energy output : Underground : Vertical Axis Francis, 600rpm : 473.1m : 36.9m2/s : 150MW : 409GWh

Construction
Construction of the Upper Kotmale power plant is constructed under five main phases. Each contract is awarded to Japanese contractors through tenders according a condition stated in the funding agreement. Under these contractors, subcontractors and workers work. Lot 1 Preparatory work The construction commenced on September 23rd, 2005 by M/S Maeda Corporation of Japan to whom the tender was awarded and it took 1004 days to complete. The scope of this contract are to construct access roads to the respective construction sites including roads with drains, culverts and a bridge across Kotmale oya at Talawakele, building of residential houses, office complexes and recreation facilities for the Employer and the Engineer, building of permanent houses for the resettled people, laying of 33kV supply line to the construction sites connected from the Nuwara Eliya grid substation. As far as the resettlement is concerned, it is considered as one major social aspect of the project. The goal of the resettlement plan was to improve the living standards, income earning capacity of the people who got displaced by the project. All the resettled people were awarded new houses in different housing schemes under main three categories as type A, B and C having 624, 818 and 1003 square feet of floor area respectively. Apart from that, a new school Talawakele Tamil School with much better facilities and buildings are built for the students of the area as the old school with very less facilities and few buildings is displaced. A new Urban Council building and a Cinema hall, UDA rest house and some urban council and CGR Quarters are built for the benefit of the society of the area. Lot 2 Main Civil Works Out of the main five lots, this is the largest where more than half of the project cost will be used to. The construction period is 1613 days. This phase includes the construction of the main intake dam, waterways and power house complex and switch yard. The water stream of the river is diverted through a diversion tunnel to dry out the area for the construction of the Intake dam where the designed flood is 200m3/s. The intake dam which is constructed here is a concrete gravity dam. It is 157m long, 35.5m in height, 7m of width, sand flush way outlet and intake. Control building for the dam of 170m2 of floor area, river bank protection along left and right banks of the reservoir for 1.2km and road works are also constructed under the main construction of the main intake dam.

Construction of waterways consists of a headrace tunnel, upstream surge tank, shaft for penstock, draft tunnel, downstream surge chamber, tailrace tunnel and an outlet.