Salini Impregilo signs deal for Georgia hydro scheme

Morgan Sindall to raise the roof on £30m Birmingham office jobWillmott Dixon gets £20m University of Warwick hubFirst score for Wates’ northeast pushLeighton team lands $5bn Sydney M5 motorwayISG picked for Warrington UTC Salini Impregilo has signed the contract for a US$575m (£373m) hydroelectric project in Georgia.

The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract is for the design and construction of the Nenskra hydroelectric project in the mountainous region of Svaneti, in the northwest of the country.

The contract was signed at Tbilisi in the presence of Georgia’s prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, and its minister of energy, Kakha Kaladze.

The work has been commissioned by the JSC Nenskra Hydro consortium, composed of the Korea Water Resources Corporation  and the Georgian government.  Salini Impregilo beat European and Asian competitors for the contract, which will have an installed power of 280MW.

The work is to be completed within 62 months and involves a main dam, a weir on the Nakra river, a transfer tunnel, a headrace tunnel to the powerhouse and the powerhouse itself. The weir on the Nakra river will be 9m high and 50m long at its crest; and the associated transfer tunnel will be 14.4km long with a 3.5m. It will convey Nakra River’s water to the new reservoir.  The headrace tunnel will be 15.6km long with a 4.5m diameter.

The asphalt face rockfill dam will be 135m high and 820m long at its crest, with a capacity of 183 million cubic meters of water.