Talbingo Dam: (Satellite)
The project will drill tunnels to connect two existing reservoirs. It will have a generating capacity of 2gw and a storage capacity of 350gwh, which is enough to power three million homes for a week.
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| SnowyHydro-about |
Most of the sources said it will cost a little over A$4bn. But it is now at least A$5.1bn ($3.62bn). [power-technology, I could not find a date]
The reservoirs are big enough to show up as thick blue "lines" on a road map. I think these dams are on a couple of the tributaries for the Snowy River. And the Snowy Mountains are in this area. Thus the name of the project.
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| Satellite |
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| Sreenshot |
I surmise that Snowy 1.0 was the construction of the original 16 dams and 7 hydropower plants [0:22]. (16 major dams, 9 hydropower plants, 2 pumping stations and 225km (140 miles) of tunnels [0:34])
The 1953 Tumut 3 Power Station is the first major pumped storage facility built in Australia, and it remains the largest as of 2021 at 1.65gw. The entire project was completed in 1972, and it has a capacity of 4.1gw. In today's dollars, it cost about A$7.6bn, and it had 121 fatalities. [7:35]
An animation shows that the tunnel boring machine (TBM) will start from the upper reservoir (Tantangara) and bore all the way to the lower reservoir (Talbingo). That is, it can do the two curves and the sharp downward angle that are necessary to bore the descending tunnel.
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| Snapshot of An Animation |
But I'm confused because they plan to use 3 TBMs to bore the 27km of tunnels. The first TBM (Lady Eileen Hudson) has already been boring the "access tunnel." (I found better information concerning the tunnels, and it is below after some overview information.) The second one (Kirsten) is being built now [June 12, 2021], and it is custom designed to be able to bore "on a very steep gradient." "TBM Kirsten is set to excavate the 2.9km emergency, cable and ventilation tunnel (ECVT), which provides alternate access to the underground power station. The 205-metre-long TBM will then bore the 1.4km inclined pressure shaft (IPS) and a 2.4km section of the headrace tunnel." [SnowyHydro-second] The use of 3 TBMs means that the above animation is so inaccurate that it should have never been done.
I found an overview map of Snowy Hydro 1.0 that includes a dotted orange line and rectangle for 2.0:
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| Snowy-5 |
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| Snowy-overview, p6 "The power station complex will be located approximately 800m underground. Two main caverns will be constructed. The machine hall will be about 240m long, 50m high and 30m wide and next to that is the transformer hall, at about 200m long, 50m high and 20m wide. Six galleries will run between the two halls and carry cables that connect the generators with the transformers. To reinforce the structure where required, rock bolts of 15m to 20m in length will be drilled into the rock at the top and sides of each cavern. The power station will consist of six reversible Francis pump-turbine and motor-generator units. Three units will be synchronous (fixed) speed and three will be variable speed, which enhance the operating flexibility of the power station." |
In addition to the A$5+bn cost of Snowy 2.0, a significant investment is also needed in the transmission network to change it from coal-fired power sources to wind, solar and hydro power sources.
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| Snowy-overview, p16 |
I learned about this Snowy Hydro 2.0 from this post that reports that they are assembling the third TBM in Nov 2021.
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| Snowy Hydro posted |
The following information comes from Snowy-10+11. This document numbered the TBMs to facilitate the layout of the photos. All other documents I saw numbered them in the order that they were deployed. Thus I'm trying very hard not to use TBM numbers in the following description.
The above animation shows just the 27km (17 miles) of water conduit tunnels. The project will bore 40km (25 miles) of tunnels using three TBMs. The diameter of the TBM bores is 11m (36'). After the concrete segments are installed, the diameter is 10m. The extra mileage of tunnels consist of two tunnels between Lobs Hole and the power station chambers. One is the main access tunnel and the other is the "emergency, ventilation and cable" tunnel.
The first tunnel built will be the access tunnel. When that tunnel is done, the TBM will be disassembled and rebuilt at the Talbingo portal to bore the tailrace tunnel. The TBM for these bores is a 137m (450') long single shield, open mode machine designed to deal with hard rock conditions, and it should be able to bore 30m a day. It was built in China by CREG.
The second TBM was built in Germany by Herrenknecht AG, and it is obviously pictured below before it was shipped to Australia. This one is 205m (673') long and one of the "longest TBMs in operation around the globe." It is also a single shield, open mode machine designed to bore hard rock. But it is also designed to operate downhill and then be converted to excavate uphill. It will excavate the second tunnel from Lobs Hole to the power station. "From there, it will tunnel the inclined pressure shaft, linking the headrace tunnel (the upper waterway tunnel) to the large turbines within the power station." It also should be able to bore 30m/day.
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| Snowy-10+11 |
The third TBM was also constructed by Herrenknecht AG. It has a length of 142m (466') and will bore 16km of the headrace tunnel. It "can operate in 'slurry mode' when required, mixing bentonite and water into the fine excavated rock, forming a 'slurry' that can be pumped back to the surface for treatment. This will ensure that rock dust doesn't become airborne, keeping our workers safe!" It should be able to do 30m-50m per day depending on rock conditions.
Dec 30, 2021: That yellow crane has to be overkill for building the counter weight stack. But if you have it on site anyhow, you might as well use it. The cost of just those two cranes has to be significant.
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| Screenshot @ 0:27 Time to watch our latest time lapse video!  Check out this cool imagery of the cutterhead being placed onto tunnel boring machine (TBM) Florence at Tantangara. With a 600-tonne crane doing the heavy lifting, the assembly of the third Snowy 2.0 TBM is far from boring. Snowy 2.0 is Australia’s largest committed renewable energy project, underpinning thousands of megawatts of intermittent renewables through its 2,000MW of capacity to pump, store and generate electricity. Snowy Hydro is working with our principal contractor, Future Generation Joint Venture to deliver Snowy 2.0 |
The crane rotates as it "walks" with the load.
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| Screenshot @ 0:47 |
Jul 2023:
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| 0:46 video @ 0:07 "Our Lady Eileen Hudson tunnel boring machine (TBM) has received a new blue cutterhead and the carefully planned lift - which needed the services of a whopping 750-tonne crane - was captured on time-lapse video at the Talbingo adit. Thanks to the Future Generation Joint Venture crews who achieved the task safely and efficiently. Now the Lady Eileen TBM can get ready for her second task for Snowy 2.0, excavating the 6km tailrace tunnel." |
Oct 2023: 44:57 video: "Inside the engineering megaproject that went horribly wrong"
The TBM Florence has been stuck, and the budget is now 6 times the initial estimate.
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