Dnieper Hydroelectric Station - GOELRO Plan and Construction, 1921-1941

GOELRO Plan and Construction, 1921-1941

Lenin's slogan "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country" became a motto for Soviet industrialization. On February 7, 1920, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets announced the formation of a State Electrification Commission (GOELRO) under the chairmanship of the Bolshevik electrical engineer, Gleb Krzhizhanovskii. The task of the commission was to devise a general plan for electrifying the country via the construction of a network of regional power stations. Ten months later, GOELRO presented its plan, a document of more than five hundred pages, to the Eighth Congress of Soviets in Moscow.

The Dneprostroi Dam was built on deserted land in the countryside to stimulate Soviet industrialization. The design that was accepted dates back to the GOELRO electrification plan for the USSR, which was adopted in early 1920s. The station was designed by a group of engineers headed by Prof. Ivan Alexandrov, a chief expert of GOELRO who later became a head of the RSFSR State Planning Commission. The station was planned to provide electricity for several aluminium production plants and a high quality steel production plant that were also to be constructed in the area.

DniproHES project used the experience gained from the construction of the Sir Adam Beck Hydroelectric Power Stations Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, Hydroelectric Island Maligne, Central La Gabelle the St. Maurice river.

September 17, 1932, for "the outstanding work in the construction of DniproHES" the Soviet government awarded six American engineers (included Hugh Cooper, G. Thompson, the engineer of General Electric), the Order of the Red Banner of Labour.

Soviet Industrialization was accompanied by a wide propaganda effort. Leon Trotsky, by then out of power, campaigned for the idea within the ruling Politburo in early 1926. In a speech to the Komsomol youth movement, he said:

In the south the Dnieper runs its course through the wealthiest industrial lands; and it is wasting the prodigious weight of its pressure, playing over age-old rapids and waiting until we harness its stream, curb it with dams, and compel it to give lights to cities, to drive factories, and to enrich ploughland. We shall compel it!

The dam and its buildings were designed by the constructivist architects Viktor Vesnin and Nikolai Kolli. Construction began in 1927 and the plant started to produce electricity in October 1932. Generating some 650 MW, the station became the largest Soviet power plant at the time and one of the largest in the world. American specialists under the direction of Colonel Hugh Cooper took part in the construction. The first five giant power generators were manufactured by General Electric. During the second 5-year plan four more generators of similar power produced by Elektrosila in Leningrad were installed. The Dneprostroi Dam was the largest in Europe at the time of its construction.

The industrial centres of Zaporizhia, Kryvy Rih and Dnipropetrovsk grew from the power provided by the station, including such energy-consuming industries as aluminium production, which was vitally important for Soviet aviation.