The opening gala started at 10 a.m. Moscow time. Republican authorities, RAO Unified Energy Systems of Russia managers, designers, corporate suppliers, and all parts of Dagestan are represented among the guests, reports the Dagenergo regional grid press service.
The plant has a total 15,000 kilowatt capacity to produce 57.6 million kW/hr a year. The units will work even before a 73 meter high concrete dam is ready.
There is another power plant on the Kara Koisu, the Gergebil, Dagestan's first, working without a hitch for 65 years now. It came as Europe's maiden high-head dam highland power plant.
The Gunib construction efforts cost 450 million rubles, in current prices, roughly $15 million. This is Russia's only hydropower plant whose construction started in the 1990s to be financed by the local grid single-handed. That was when Dagenergo launched a program to build small plants on mountain torrents.
The St. Petersburg-based Lengidroproyect research institute designed the Gunib plant. Industrial companies of St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Syzran, and Ukraine's Kharkov manufactured turbine parts and other machinery.
