PJSC RusHydro announces the beginning of the construction of the 23.4 MW Cherekskaya small hydropower plant (HPP) in Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, Russia. Victor Khmarin, Chairman of the Management Board – General Director of RusHydro and Kazbek Kokov, Head of Kabardino-Balkarian Republic took part in the ceremony.

Cherekskaya small HPP will be situated on Cherek River in Urvanskiy region near Psygansu village, Russia. The facility will be the fourth power plant of the Nizhne-Chereksky cascade, which includes Kashkhatau, Aushigerskaya and Zaragizhskaya hydropower plants with combined capacity of 155.7 MW. The facility will go online in 4Q24.

Victor Khmarin commented: “RusHydro is actively engaged in construction of new facilities in Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. So far, we have commissioned Zaragizhskaya and Verkhnebalkarskaya HPPs – Verkhnebarskanskaya HPP is currently under engineering phase. Cherkeskaya small HPP will produce 87 GW of environmentally friendly [energy] annually.”

Hydroproject Institute has engineered the facility with minimal adverse effect on the environment. The facility will employ a derivation system without a dam and reservoir, which excludes any flooding damage to the area of presence. The water flow will come from Zaragizhskaya HPP.

RusHydro is actively developing small hydro construction in the Northern Caucasus, Russia, as the region provides optimal weather conditions for operation of the facilities. So far the company has already commissioned 10 MW Verkhnebalkarskaya, 5.6 MW Ust-Dzhegutinskaya, and 5.25 MW Barsuchkovskaya small HPPs. Krasnogorskaya small HPP 1 and 2 (24.9 MW each) and Bashennaya small HPP (10 MW) are under construction, while Verkhnebaksanskaya (23.2 MW), Nikhaloyskaya (23 MW), and Mogokhskaya (49.8 MW) small HPPs are in the engineering phase. All facilities have successfully passed competitive selection of investment projects for construction of generating facilities using renewable energy sources with guaranteed return on investment (DPM for renewables).