The Gariuai Hydroelectric Plant is a

run-of-the-river Run-of-river hydroelectricity (ROR) or run-of-the-river hydroelectricity is a type of hydroelectric generation plant whereby little or no water storage is provided. Run-of-the-river power plants may have no water storage at all or a limited amou ...

micro hydro Micro hydro is a type of hydroelectric power that typically produces from 5 kW to 100 kW of electricity using the natural flow of water. Installations below 5 kW are called pico hydro. These installations can provide power to an i ...

power plant located in the town of Gariuai in

Baucau District Baucau (, ) is a municipality, and was formerly a district, of East Timor, on the northern coast in the eastern part of the country. The capital is also called Baucau (formerly Vila Salazar). The population of the municipality is 111,694 (c ...

East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-weste ...

. It failed within months of its first startup, due to a landslide which took out the penstock. A subsequent effort to restore the penstock a few years later was inadequate, and the penstock failed yet again. This time due to a lack of welding between the pipes. The dams, transmission lines, power station and much of the penstock remain intact but the site has not been used for power generation since the last failure in 2008. It was the only operational

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

power station in the country, and has operated for just a few months total. In order to reduce dependency on diesel generators, sites were surveyed in 2004 in Baucau District for a hydroelectric power plant. Two streams, Builai and Wainalale were selected to provide water to the power station. Construction began in 2006. A tall

embankment dam An embankment dam is a large artificial dam. It is typically created by the placement and compaction of a complex semi-plastic mound of various compositions of soil or rock. It has a semi-pervious waterproof natural covering for its surface and ...

was constructed on Builai stream and a second high dam was built on Wainalale stream. Connecting the dams to the power station is of

penstock A penstock is a sluice or gate or intake structure that controls water flow, or an enclosed pipe that delivers water to hydro turbines and sewerage systems. The term is inherited from the earlier technology of mill ponds and watermills. H ...

. A single 326 kW

Pelton turbine The Pelton wheel or Pelton Turbine is an impulse-type water turbine invented by American inventor Lester Allan Pelton in the 1870s. The Pelton wheel extracts energy from the impulse of moving water, as opposed to water's dead weight like the trad ...

-generator is located in the power station which was commissioned in November 2008. The elevation between the reservoirs and the power station affords a

hydraulic head Hydraulic head or piezometric head is a specific measurement of liquid pressure above a vertical datum., 410 pages. See pp. 43–44., 650 pages. See p. 22. It is usually measured as a liquid surface elevation, expressed in units of length, ...

of . The project cost US$1.4 million which was funded by a grant from the

Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate ( no, Norges vassdrags- og energidirektorat or NVE) is a Norwegian government agency established in 1921. It is under the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy and regulates the country's water reso ...

References

Dams in East Timor Dams completed in 2008 Energy infrastructure completed in 2008 Run-of-the-river power stations Baucau Municipality Hydroelectric power stations in East Timor {{EastTimor-struct-stub