The World's Largest Generating Station

Abstract

FEW engineers in Great Britain know much of the progress that is being made in the hydro-electric plant which is being erected at the Samara bend on the Volga by Soviet engineers. The Electrical Times of October 20 suggests that a study of the map of Russia will show that the lie of the land at this bend is ideal for the building of a huge hydro-electric plant. Imagine a hairpin bend of the river with the town of Samara containing about 60,000 inhabitants at the top of the bend. The two legs of the hairpin extend west and embrace a ridge of mountains. About thirty miles west of the town is a ravine in these hills, where a small tributary cuts through northward to join the Upper Volga at Stavropol. This would make an ideal site for a power-house as the pipe lines would short-circuit something like 75 miles of a falling river. The plant when completed is to have a generating capacity of 3·4 million kilowatts. We know that the six stations at Niagara have a total water power of 1·6 million horse-power. Boulder Dam will have an ultimate water-power of 1·3 kilowatts but its main purpose is for irrigation, and as electric power is only a side product it would therefore generate much less electricity than the Volga power station, which may therefore claim to be the world's largest power project. This is a case in which electricity seems to be shaping the geography of a country. Much of the Samara power will be transmitted and probably, considering the immense distances to which it will be transmitted, a voltage of 300,000 or more will be used. Local industries will almost certainly group themselves round the power station, as they have done in several places under Soviot control, and a large new town will grow up.