RusHydro has announced the opening of the Sakhalinskaya GRES-2 on Sakhalin Island. The modern 120 MW power plant with long-run annual output of 840 kWh will replace the obsolete Sakhalinskaya GRES, currently scheduled for decommissioning.

The new plant has successfully passed all comprehensive pre-launch testing and is ready for the Autumn-Winter season. The equipment for the plant was manufactured in Russia; the steam turbines by Urals Turbine Works, generators by ELSIB and boiler units by Power Machines.

The plant’s main equipment includes two turbine units and two boiler units. The plant also includes a unique 65-meter “dry” cooling tower. Unlike regular cooling towers, where a substantial part of water evaporates into atmosphere, this cooling tower is designed to exclude loss of water. All facilities and equipment of the plant are designed to withstand harsh natural conditions of Sakhalin Island, such as risk of earthquakes with magnitude up to 9, as well as powerful typhoons.

Commissioning of Sakhalinskaya GRES-2 is an important event both for RusHydro and the Sakhalin region. The new plant will guarantee reliable energy supply for Sakhalin and create reserve capacity.

This is important for development of new industrial projects, as well as the socioeconomic development of the island. The new plant will become a large-scale consumer of locally mined coal and lignite and, consequently, provide load to coal miners in the region.

Thanks to highly efficient electric filters, retaining 99.6 per cent of fly ash particles, the new plant complies with highest environmental standards.

Construction of Sakhalinskaya GRES-2 began in 2015 as a greenfield project on the Western coast of the island, near the town of Ilyinskoye. The main reason for construction of the new facility was high wear-and-tear of Sakhalinskaya GRES, commissioned back in 1965. By 2014 capacity of Sakhalinskaya GRES has fallen from 315 MW to 84 MW, leaving Yuzhno-Sakhalinskaya CHP-1 as the main source of electricity in the power system of the island.

The old Sakhalinskaya GRES will be dismantled following the 2019-2020 Autumn-Winter season upon which the employees transfer to other facilities of RusHydro.

The launch ceremony was attended by Yuri Trutnev, deputy chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Far Eastern Federal District, Alexander Kozlov, Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic Nikolay Shulginov, chairman of the Management Board – general director of RusHydro and Valery Limarenko, Governor of the Sakhalin region.