By lyndamyer
In case of government support for the project’s new environmental approvals, excavation on the main tunnel of the Snowy Hydro 2.0 hydropower project in Australia could restart at the end of July.
As Guardian states, the project promoter has also said that work is undergoing to launch a slurry plant that would enable tunnel boring machine (TBM) Florence to bore through soft rock.
Responsibility of building the project with £3.3bn (A$5.9bn) value in Kosciuszko National Park in New South Wales is up to the Australian government owned energy company Snowy Hydro.
Following that Florence faced soft ground 70m into the tunnel, the tunneling operations on the project’s 17km long headrace tunnel have been halted since December 2022 and a 9m deep surface depression then emerged in the ground above it.
Meanwhile the efforts are being made to extricate the 2,000t machine that has been stuck ever since.
As the New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) said in May of the current year, Snowy Hydro had to prepare a modification report before it could resume tunneling operations for the tunnel.
Also in order to advancing the tunneling work, the company would apply for a modification of environmental approval as Snowy Hydro chief executive Dennis Barnes has now said.
If given approval by the New South Wales government, the determined date for boring resume is next four to six weeks.
Updated cost estimates for the project, which are expected before the end of this year, may also include an option to speed up boring on the head race tunnel by starting operations from the other end.
Considering that the news of relaunching the tunneling process has been revealed, conservation group the National Parks Association of New South Wales told the Guardian that it does not want to see any further damage to the park, while in May 2023 it accused the hydropower project of failing to comply with environmental management principles in a damning report.
According to group’s recent statement: “We obviously have to wait to see what the modification proposes but there’s already been enormous damage to the Kosciuszko National Park with the works to date.”
Including linking two existing dams by tunnels up to 27km in length, and building an underground power station, this giant hydro project involves complex engineering.
The hydroelectricity complex is being built by Future Generation – a joint venture between Webuild, Australian firm Clough, which has sold its assets and project share to Webuild, and US Webuild subsidiary Lane Construction – for Snowy Hydro.
While increase in costs and lengthy delays were the main problems of this project in recent years, Snowy Hydro recently announced that the project has a delayed target date for full commercial operation of all units of December 2028 in the best case scenario, but this could be as late as December 2029.
