Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), in a joint venture with Alstom, has bagged a Rs 1,843-crore contract from the Tehri Dam & Hydro Project for building a pumped storage plant at Tehri, Uttarakhand.
HCC's share in the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract is Rs 701 crore. The project is to be completed in 54 months.
Pumped storage is used by hydro power plants for balancing their load. Water is stored by pumping it up from the lower reservoir to the higher one using the off-peak power of the hydroelectric project itself. The stored water is released to produce electricity when needed during demand time. Despite power consumption for the pumping, more revenue is generated by sale of electricity during peak demand, when tariffs are high. HCC said the work involves construction of head race tunnel, surge shaft, penstocks, underground powerhouse, ventilation system gallery, Bus bar gallery and cavern, and a tail race tunnel.
The Tehri Pump Storage Project comprises of four reversible pump turbine units of 250 MW each. The operation of the project is based on the concept of recycling of water discharged between upper reservoir and lower reservoir. The Tehri Dam reservoir will function as the upper reservoir and Koteshwar reservoir as the lower balancing reservoir. On completion, additional generating capacity of 1,000 MW, peaking power, will be added to the Northern Region.
HCC said it is executing 14 hydro-electric power projects, including four in Jammu & Kashmir, three in Himachal Pradesh, two in Bhutan and one each in Uttarakhand, Sikkim, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh and Maharashtra.
HCC has constructed the head race tunnel and surge shaft for the 1,500-MW Nathpa Jhakri Hydro Electric Project and the underground powerhouse and tunnel for the Chamera Hydro Electric Power Project, Stage I.