Completion of the project, on the Çoruh River in Artvin province, was marked with a ceremony this week attended by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
At a height of 275 metres, the dam is the tallest in Turkey and the fifth-tallest dam of its kind in the world. When fully operational, the hydroelectric plant will have an installed capacity of 558MW and is expected to contribute 5bn Turkish Lira (£221m) to the national economy annually. It is calculated to have an annual energy generation capacity of up to two and a quarter billion kilowatts per hour.
Construction of the Yusufeli Dam has been carried out by main contractor Limak Construction, part of the Limak Group, a Turkish conglomerate. The client is the Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry and the General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works.
Limak said that the design and construction of the dam was especially challenging, given its extreme height and the geological structure of the site. The company added that the construction was carried out entirely by Turkish engineers, and that its completion has “significantly contributed to the world [of] dam literature”.
More than 7,000 people have worked on the project since construction started in 2013. Over 69 kilometres of new road has also been built to replace routes that will be submerged under the lake created by the dam.
The new routes also include 39 tunnels, totalling 58 kilometres, and 19 bridges with a total length of 3.6 kilometres. Nearly all the construction for the relocation roads has been completed and is opened to traffic, with the exception of the Yusufeli Central Viaduct, which is still ongoing, said Limak.
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