Volga Hydroelectric Station - History

History

Built as part of the massive post-war industrialization project - the so-called Great building sites of communism - it was authorized by Joseph Stalin signing the Council of Ministers of the USSR order #3555 on 6 August 1950. The plan called for building a station north of the city of Stalingrad (modern Volgograd) with a minimum storage capacity of 1.7 million KWh.

Ten thousand youths from the Komsomol league participated in the construction, and the city of Volzhsky was formed on the left bank of the river to provide housing. Machinery was sent from all corners of the country; Moscow, Tashkent, Chelyabinsk and Kharkov, and forestry from Karelia. New electric equipment came from Zaporozhye and Sverdlovsk. The turbines and generators were built in Leningrad. In total more than 1,500 individual plants and dozens of research institutes sent equipment and specialists.

The first powerhouse came online on 22 December 1958, and the plant was declared complete on 10 September 1961. Technologically the station broke many new ground. In 1959 a new Moscow-Stalingrad 500 kV high voltage line power came into operation. Several years later, for the first time in the world, an experimental 800 kV DC line, Donbas to Volgograd, was successfully tested and later became operational. During the 1960s and 1970s several new electrotechnical and hydromechanical machinery was tested for future Siberian and foreign stations.