Tala Hydroelectric Power Station 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 ...

type

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 A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many p ...

on the Wangchu River in

Chukha District Chukha District (Dzongkha: ཆུ་ཁ་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Chu-kha rdzong-khag''; also spelled "Chhukha") is one of the 20 dzongkhag (districts) comprising Bhutan. The major town is Phuentsholing which is the gateway city ...

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

. The station consists of a tall

gravity dam A gravity dam is a dam constructed from concrete or stone masonry and designed to hold back water by using only the weight of the material and its resistance against the foundation to oppose the horizontal pressure of water pushing against it. ...

which diverts water through a long

headrace A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets ...

tunnel to the power station () which contains six 170 MW

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 ...

-generators. The difference in elevation between the dam and the power station affords the project 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 . Preliminary construction on the project began in 1997 and major works were underway by 1999. The power equipments viz. turbines, generators etc. were designed and manufactured by Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (

BHEL Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) is an Indian Public Sector Undertakings in India, central public sector undertaking. It is under the ownership of Ministry of Heavy Industries, Government of India. It is based in New Delhi, India. ...

), at their various factories in India. The first generator was commissioned on 31 July 2006 and the final on 30 March 2007. The project cost was about US$900 million and was financed by

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

through grants. All of the electricity generated is exported to India through three 400kV transmission lines. The power station is the country's biggest hydropower project and the fourth after the Chuka project (336 MW) in 1988, followed by Kurichhu (60 MW) in 2001, and Basochho (40 MW) in 2005. Electricity revenue was expected to provide no less than 60% of the government's entire revenue in 2009. In 2017, 97.7% of Bhutanese households had access to electricity.Worldbank
/ref>

References

{{reflist Dams completed in 2006 Energy infrastructure completed in 2006 Energy infrastructure completed in 2007 Hydroelectric power stations in Bhutan Bhutan–India relations Dams in Bhutan Run-of-the-river power stations Economy of Bhutan 2007 establishments in Bhutan

See also

References