photo credit: PELFA Group
HYDRO
For more than 15 years PELFA Group has been a reliable partner in the hydropower industry, proving its competence with a series of international large-scale projects.
PELFA GROUP IS EXPANDING ITS HYDROPOWER PRODUCTION CAPACITY Headquartered in Buja near Udine, Northern Italian steelwork engineering specialist PELFA Group is taking its performance capacities to the next level. PELFA is currently delivering variable-speed turbines for hydropower plant Segozerskaya in the Karelia region in Northern Russia. The project is implemented by the world’s second-largest aluminium manufacturer, EN+ Group. For PELFA this marks a further significant business development milestone – yet another impressive proof of the firm’s professional competence and flexibility in serving a variety of markets.
KAPLAN TURBINE WITH VARIABLE ROTATIONAL SPEED “Project Segozerskaya was planned by the Russian planning office PMCB – Power Machine Construction Bureau. They put their full trust in our competence. What makes this particular plant so special are the highly fluctuating water levels of two lakes where the new facility is situated,” explains Andrea Forgiarini, who has been serving as PELFA Group’s CEO since 2004. The machine concept calls for a single-regulation direct flow Kaplan turbine with a diameter of 2.8 m and variable rotational speed. This means that only the guide vane assembly can be
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regulated. The facility is to be equipped with three identical, horizontally aligned machine units in a highly compact design. “This specific design with variable rotational speed is used because the altitude varies between 1.9 m and 8.6 m up to four times a day. As a result, the rotational speed varies between 60 and 183.3 rpm,” as Forgiarini explains. Owing to the low installation height, and not least because of the cost saving potential, high-speed direct current generators are coupled up photo credit: zek
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ccording to business news platform Bloomberg, the overall technical hydropower potential of Russia, the world’s largest country, amounts to a whopping 800 TWh. Currently it is Sibiria’s hydropower potential in particular that is attracting a growing number of investors. One of them is EN+ Group, a conglomerate of Russian aluminium manufacturer Rusal and a group of hydropower operators. Today EN+ Group not only ranks as the world’s second-largest aluminium manufacturer but is also considered Russia’s largest independent energy provider. The firm is currently investing in a series of hydropower plants in Siberia. First and foremost among them is project Segozerskaya in the far Northern region of Russia. This plant is designed to provide the energy for a new data centre, DCLab Karelia. It is a groundbreaking hydropower project not far from the Finnish border, whose implementation involves a number of challenges that had – and still have – to be overcome.
With a total length of around 12 m and a rotator diameter of 2.8 m, the machines for the Segozerskaya power plant in Russia have impressive dimensions.
May 2022
PELFA Group Int. 2022.indd 54
03.05.2022 11:20:51
