Skogfoss power station is a
hydro electric dam in
Finnmark
Finnmark (; se, Finnmárku ; fkv, Finmarku; fi, Ruija ; russian: Финнмарк) was a county in the northern part of Norway, and it is scheduled to become a county again in 2024.
On 1 January 2020, Finnmark was merged with the neighbouri ...
, Norway.
The power station is situated in
Sør-Varanger near the village of
Skogfoss on the river
Paatsjoki
The Paatsjoki River ( fi, Paatsjoki, sms, Paaččjokk, sme, Báhčaveaijohka, no, Pasvikelva, sv, Pasvik älv, russian: Паз or Патсойоки, ''Paz or Patsoyoki'') is a river that flows through Finland, Norway, and Russia.
Since 1826 ...
(''Pasvikelva''). The power station, which is owned by
Pasvik Kraft, a subsidiary of
Varanger Kraft
Varanger Kraft is a municipal owned power company that operates four hydroelectric power stations producing 420 GWh per year through the subsidiary Pasvik Kraft, operates the power grid in the seven owner municipalities in Eastern Finnmark with 3 ...
, makes use of a 20-metre fall in the river. Although the power station is located on a river,
Lake Inari in
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
is regulated as storage for all of the power stations in the
drainage basin
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, t ...
. The river is dammed at the power station, which also has a small reservoir in
Langvannet. Following the damming, the water level rose to a level of 9 metres and many cabins had to be vacated. A
Sami grave site also had to be moved following the regulation.
Parts of the dam pass over the Russian border. There are roads to the road network of both countries, but the border crossing is not open to public. There is only one road on the Norwegian side from the
Pasvik valley to the outside world, meaning visitors have to drive the same way back. There are wishes from local people to build a road to Finland, so that tourists can pass through the valley. Such plans have been rejected due to cost reasons. It would be possible to use the road over the Skogfoss station or the one over the
Hevoskoski/Hestefoss station upstream and the existing Russian road to the Finnish border. But this has not been politically possible.
There are two installed
Kaplan turbines producing a total of 60
megawatt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units, International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), ...
s. The mean yearly production of the dam is 358
gigawatt hours.
References
External links
NVE
Hydroelectric power stations in Norway
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