Tokuyama Dam - History

History

In December 1957, Electric Power Development Company (J-Power) selected the Ibi River for study at the 23rd Electric Power Development Coordinating Meeting. By May 1976, the Ministry of Construction released their bulletin "Policy on Tokuyama Dam Construction Project". In December 1982, the project was incorporated into the Electric Power Development Basic Plan. It was approved by the government in 1998. The original project was a pumped-storage hydroelectric scheme which consisted of the Tokuyama Dam as the upper reservoir, the Sugihara Dam as the lower and the 400 MW Sugihara Power Plant.

Construction on the dam started in May 2000 but by May 2004 J-Power and Chubu Electric announced they had changed the design of the project due to the concerns and protests of locals and groups. Instead of the pumped-storage hydroelectric scheme, only the Tokuyama Dam would be constructed with a 153 MW conventional power station. Subsequently, the Sugihara Dam and Sugihara Power Plant were scrapped from the project. During construction, the 503 m (1,650 ft) long Tokunoyama Hattoku Bridge was constructed upstream. With improved techniques and equipment, fill for the dam was laid at a pace of 6,200,000 m3 (220,000,000 cu ft) per year, enabling the dam to be constructed in 26 months. Sediment from the Yokoyama Dam's reservoir was used as fill as well. In September 2006 initial filling of the reservoir behind the Tokuyama Dam began and by June 2008, the dam was complete. Filling was complete in September. In October of the same year, J-Power passed oversight of the power station construction to Chubu.