Permanent Concrete Pouring Begins at Australia's Snowy 2.0 Underground Power Station

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 20, Snowy Hydro of Australia announced that permanent concrete pouring has officially begun at the underground power station of the Snowy 2.0 pumped storage project, marking the project's gradual transition from underground cavern excavation to the construction of the power station's internal structures and preparations for electromechanical equipment installation. Excavation of the underground machine hall and transformer hall is more than 90% complete, and the project team has begun installing inlet valves, spiral casings, and other core equipment for six reversible pump-turbine generator units.

The Snowy 2.0 underground power station is located nearly 1 kilometer below ground. The machine hall is approximately 251 meters long and about 52 meters high, while the transformer hall is approximately 223 meters long and about 46 meters high. Excavation of all six connecting tunnels between the two main caverns has been completed. Transmission and transformer equipment will subsequently be installed to deliver the output from the six generators to the high-voltage transformer system.

In the coming months, the construction team will install the first batch of more than 1,400 precast concrete components, which will form the internal installation structures for the generating equipment, transformers, and related electromechanical systems. All six reversible pump-turbines configured for the project have arrived in Australia, and the single-unit high-voltage transformers, each weighing more than 400 tonnes, are currently undergoing final testing.

Snowy 2.0 connects Tantangara Reservoir and Talbingo Reservoir through approximately 27 kilometers of concrete-lined tunnels, supported by about 20 kilometers of construction and auxiliary tunnels. The project adds 2,200 MW of installed capacity and is designed for an energy storage scale of approximately 350 GWh. The main powerhouse, water conveyance system, surge facilities, and upper and lower reservoir intake/outlet structures all adopt underground or semi-underground engineering systems.

In February of this year, the project's fourth tunnel boring machine, Monica, completed commissioning for excavating the 17-kilometer headrace tunnel section crossing the Long Plain Fault Zone. At that time, overall completion of Snowy 2.0 had exceeded 70%, cumulative underground cavern excavation had surpassed 733,000 cubic meters, and 46 permanent concrete pours had been completed in the main powerhouse area. This September milestone further advances the project into large-scale internal structure construction and equipment installation preparation.