NEWS RELEASE
Community informed of Karāpiro dam road closure 7 March 2022 – The road across Mercury’s Karāpiro Dam will be closed for around four months from August this year as part of the $75 million, six year upgrade to the station, and Mercury is talking to the community about it now. The road across the dam will be closed from August until December, and then weekend-only opening for a time from January 2023. Planning is ongoing, with exact dates will be confirmed closer to the date. “The Karāpiro dam has been part of the landscape for 75 years and we know it’s well-used to cross the Waikato River,” said Mercury Head of Operations, Matt Kedian. Local iwi, the Karāpiro Lake Users Group, and other community groups and stakeholders have all been made aware of the plan. “We keep the road open and available as much as possible, and to the best of our knowledge it’s never been closed for this long before, so we want to give as much notice as possible of our plans,” says Matt. The road closure from August this year is to enable one part of the planned major works on the station, replacement of the turbine headgates. These act as a valve and close off the water to allow maintenance of the station generation equipment. The wider program of work on the dam and power station started last year, and will be underway until 2025. “Closing the road is necessary to keep everyone safe, and we thank road users for their patience during this time.” Background Construction of the Karapiro power station commenced in 1940 (during the second world war), and progress was impacted by war-related labour and materials shortages. It was completed in 1947 and commissioned in 1948. The Karapiro station comprises three identical Kaplan turbine generating units with a combined output of 96MW. The current program of works will increase overall peak station capacity by 17%, or 16.5MW, to 112.5MW (enough to power approximately 19,000 New Zealand homes) and average energy production by 32GWh to 537GWh per annum. As well as the headgate works, major areas for attention include the turbine, generators and governor systems. As a part of concurrent work to future proof the station, other items are also being addressed due to either age-related issues (by-pass valves and associated works) or legacy performance challenges (hydro intake gates and operating mechanisms, stoplogs). ENDS
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