Vidraru Dam


Vidraru Dam is a dam in Romania. It was completed in 1966 on the Argeș River and creates Lake Vidraru. The arch dam was built with the primary purpose to produce hydroelectricity. The dam's height is 166 metres, the arch length 305 meters and it can store 465 million cubic metres of water. The reservoir has a total shoreline length of 28 km.

Background

Situated between Frunţii Mountains and Ghiţu mountains, the lake collects the Capra, Buda and some other smaller rivers, with a total flow of about 5.5 million l /s. The total surface of the lake is 3,930,000 sq m, 10.3 km in length, with a maximum width of 2.2 km in the Valea Lupului zone - Călugăriţa. Normal level or water retention is 830.00 metres above sea level.
The dam's construction took 5 and a half years. It required 42 km of tunnels, excavation of 1,768,000 cubic metres of hard rocks, out of which approximatively 1 million had to be extracted from underground, 930,000 cubic metres of concrete, out of which 400,000 cubic metres were underground and required the installation of 6,300 tons of electro-mechanical equipment.
When completed, it ranked 5th in Europe, and 9th in the world. In an average hydrological year it can generate approximately of 400 GWh/year. As 2019, Vidraru Dam is the 16th tallest dam in Europe.
The Vidraru Hydro Power Plant has an installed capacity of 220 MW.

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