Nizhneturinskaya state district power station

Nizhneturinskaya TPP became the first large power plant with high-pressure boilers in the Urals and the second TPP in the area after the Sredneuralskaya TPP , the first turbines of which were launched in 1936.

According to the original plan, the Nizhneturinskaya TPP was supposed to work on the basis of coal from the Bogoslovsky and Volchanskoye deposits located north of Nizhny Tura and supply electricity to the south, up to the regional center - Sverdlovsk . Construction was planned to unfold in the mid 1940s. ^[4] , but the real work on the site began only 3 years after the end of the war. Perhaps the construction of the Nizhneturinskaya TPP was partially due to the construction of a plant for electromagnetic separation of uranium isotopes (which is highly energy intensive) in the village of Gorny ^[5] , two kilometers northwest of Nizhnyaya Tura.

On October 20, 1948, construction of the Nizhneturinskaya TPP began ^[6] , and already in December 1950, 2 turbines with a total capacity of 105 MW were commissioned. ^[7] One of these turbines manufactured by the Swiss company Brown, Boveri & Cie will operate until 2016. ^[8] In the autumn of the same year, a nearby uranium enrichment plant began operation. The use of cogeneration turbines allowed the power plant to provide heat to the city of Nizhnyaya Tura and pos. Mountain ^[5] . Thus, formally called a state district power station, the Nizhneturinskaya power plant operated in the thermal power station mode.

In 1954, the Nizhneturinskaya TPP was connected with Sverdlovsk (Yuzhnaya substation) one of the first 220 kV transmission lines in the Urals. ^[6] Around 1962, 220 kV transmission lines reached the Nizhneturinskaya GRES to Serov and Krasnoturinsk , thereby allowing power to be supplied to the metallurgical plants of the Serovo-Bogoslovsky energy center in addition to the capacity of the Serovskaya GRES. ^[9]

By the end of 1955, all the generating capacities of the power plants planned for installation were put into operation. The last were connected 3 steam turbines with a capacity of 100 MW each. The total capacity of the state district power station reached 563 MW, which is more than 2 times higher than the capacity of the Sredneuralskaya state district power station and made the Nizhneturinskaya state district power station the largest in the Urals. ^[7] However, already in the late 1950s and 1960s. in the Urals, Serovskaya , Verkhnetagilskaya , Yuzhnouralskaya , Troitskaya TPPs were erected, which were located closer to coal mining. In the same period, the second stage of the Sredneuralskaya GRES was built near Sverdlovsk. ^[7]

In the following years, the boiler equipment of the Nizhneturinskaya TPP was transferred to burning imported Ekibastuz coal instead of the local theological and volchansk coal. Ekibastuz coal is characterized by high growing ash content, high ash abrasion and low yield of volatile compounds. Despite the poor characteristics of coal, Ekibastuz coal enterprises supplied a huge amount of cheap coal, which the exhausting Ural deposits could not boast of. In particular, in 1965-1979. In Ekibastuz , the Bogatyr open-pit mine was built with a design capacity of 50 million tons of coal per year (in 1985, the maximum annual productivity was reached - 56.8 million tons of coal.), which at that time was the most productive in the world. In 1979-1985, the Vostochny open pit was built in Ekibastuz with a capacity of 30 million tons per year.

In the 1970s the first gas from Western Siberia arrived in the north of the Sverdlovsk region. ^[10] As a result of this, part of the power plant boilers was converted to natural gas combustion (by the beginning of the 2010s it provided more than half of the power plant's fuel needs). ^[eleven]

In 1989, electric power from the Nizhneturinskaya TPP was supplied to Kachkanar ^[12] and Gornozavodsk ^[13] , which by that time was already connected to the Kalino 500 kV substation.

During the reform of RAO UES of Russia in the year, the station was separated from Sverdlovenergo and transferred to TGK-9 in 2005 ^[14]

By the beginning of the 2010s a significant part of the equipment was decommissioned for more than half a century. The capacity of the state district power station was reduced to 268 MW for electricity and 430 Gcal / h for heat. ^{[11] [15]}

Even during the existence of RAO UES of Russia, in 2007, it was planned to expand the Nizhneturinskaya TPP: plans included the installation of a new turbine with a capacity of 115 MW and the commissioning of 1-2 pulverized coal blocks with a total capacity of 600-660 MW. ^[16]

However, the increase in coal prices and the possibility of using efficient combined-cycle technology forced TGK-9 to revise its plans. The new reconstruction project of the state district power station, called Aquamarine ^[17] , envisaged the construction of two combined-cycle units with a capacity of 230 MW and 2 hot water boilers with a capacity of 261 Gcal / h. Each power unit includes a gas turbine GT13E2 with a generator (Alstom, Switzerland), a steam turbine KT-63-7.7 (CJSC Ural Turbine Plant), a waste heat boiler PK-87 (OJSC ZIO Podolsky Machine-Building Plant "” ), a turbogenerator TF-63-2UHLZ (NPO Elsib). ^[eighteen]

Construction work began by Mosenergo Fuel and Energy Complex in November 2012 ^[19] . According to the agreement on the provision of capacity, they should be connected to the network by the beginning of 2016 ^[20] . The ceremonial launch of the completely reconstructed station was commissioned on December 15, 2015 in the presence of the Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region Yevgeny Kuyvashev ^{[1] [21]} . The launch of new state-of-the-art power plants allowed to completely decommission obsolete capacities that had worked for 65 years ^[22] .

By 2020, the region plans to commission 2,400 MW of new generating capacity, which will release nearly 730 MW of morally and physically obsolete equipment ^[23] .

From the characteristic view of the engine room with three pipes of the same height, it received the popular nickname "Aurora". ^[24]

Formally, the Nizhneturinskaya TPP branch includes a small hydropower plant in the city of Verkhoturye ^[11]

• Page on the Volga TGC website