By rosebell
The responsibility of digging a 5km tunnel through a complex geological area deep in the Snowy Mountains, known as the Long Plain Fault Zone, will be up to this 178m-long machine and the tunnel is eventually due to link Tantangara reservoir with the power station built almost 1km underground.
This TBM with 12m diameter was being tested and commissioned at manufacturer Herrenknechtʼs Guangzhou factory in China, and also was disassembled before being shipped to Port Kembla and is due to arrive in the coming weeks.
Additionally, the large components are then going to be transported to the Snowy 2.0 remote work site at Marica and reassembled.
According to Snowy Hydro chief delivery officer, Snowy 2.0 Dave Evans: “Transport movements had been predominantly scheduled at night to avoid disruption to road users in collaboration with NSW Police and Transport for NSW. Large sections of the TBM will be transported at night time through Cooma in a few weeksʼ time – the large over size and over mass loads will be pretty hard to miss coming through the middle of town.”
He also added: “Our team is working tirelessly in some pretty challenging winter conditions at our Marica work front to get ready for this TBM.”
Following a local competition involving the Stars Foundation and Tumut High School, the machineʼs name will be announced in the coming weeks.
