CURRENT SUPPORT BRIEF THE BRATSK HYDROELECTRIC POWERPLANT GOES INTO OPERATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T01003A001100290002-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 2, 2000
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: December 18, 1961
• Content Type: BRIEF

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CIA/RR-CB-61-62
Copy No 28
18 December 1.161
CURRENT SUPPORT BRIEF
THE BRATSK HYDROELECTRIC POWERPLANT GOES INTO OPERATION
OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND REPORTS
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
This report represents the immediate views of-the
originating intelligence components of the Office
of Research and Reports. Comments are solicited.
W-A-R-N-I-N-G
This document contains information affecting the national defense of
the United States, within the meaning of the espionage laws, Title 18
USC, Sections 793 and 794, the transmission or revelation of which
in any manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
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THE BRATSK HYDROELECTRIC POWERPLANT GOES INTO OPERATION
On 28 November 1961 Premier Khrushchev turned the switch
that enabled the Bratsk Hydroelectric Powerplant (GES) to produce
its first power for public supply. 1/ Upon its completion in 1963
the Bratsk GES, on the Angara River-in Irkutskaya Oblast of the
USSR, will be the largest powerplant in the world in both total
capacity and production with a final installed capacity of 4,500
megawatts (mw) in 20 hyLroffenerators rated at 225 mw each. These
will be the ilargest, hydrogenera,tors ?ever{~ installed,. Plans ~ a; ,4
for the first four units to be in by the end of 1961.
The rush to complete the Bratsk GES on schedule apparently
stems from priority needs of the Soviet nuclear materials program.
A study of the electric power requirements for regions joined to
the GES by high tension lines shows that in 1965 approximately 65
percent of the power produced at Bratsk will be transmitted to a
large 500 kilovolt (kv) substation near Angarsk that serves a prob-
able gaseous diffusion plant. 2/ The Bratsk GES will also be one
of the most important sources of power for an extensive 500 kv
transmission network under construction in East Siberia which will
be part of the future Central Siberian Unified Power Network. 3/
The Bratsk GES is the first of a series of large hydroelectric
powerplants to be built at choice sites in Siberia which comprises
the heart of hydroelectric powerplant construction in the Twenty
Year Program of the CPSU. The Bratsk project, when compared with
the Kuybyshev and Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) projects on the
flood plain of the Volga River, presents a striking example of the
investment advantages of gorge dam construction. The Bratsk GES,
because of its excellent site, will have almost twice the capacity
of the two largest hydroelectric power plants now in operation in
the USSR but will cost significantly less. (See Chart)
Capacity
(Mega-
watts)
Total
Cost
(Million
Rubles)
Cost of
Capacity
(Rubles Per
Kilowatt)
Volume of
Concrete
(Mil. Cubic
Meters)
Volume of
Earthwork
(Mil. Cubic
Meters)
Kuybyshev
GES
2,300
1,170
510
6.9
14:3
Volgograd
GES
2,530
920
360
5.6
144
Bratsk GES
4,500
630
140
4.9
42
The Bratsk GES, as originally planned, did not take full ad-
vantage of its site and would have cost about 910 million rubles.
As a result of a reassessment, probably due to the longstanding
hydroelectric vs thermal power controversy, major design changes
took place which significantly cut the volume of construction,
decreased the term of construction by two years, and lowered the
investment cost by about 280 million rubles 4/ to 630 million
rubles. 5/ This cost includes the dam, equipment, ancillary struc-
tures, clearing the reservoir, worker housing, access railroads, and
a 220 kilovolt high tension line from Irkutsk.
18 December 1961 CIA/RR-CB-61-62
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Construction work on the dam structure will probably be com-
pleted by the end of 1963--about the same time that the last hydro-
generators are installed. The dam has now reached a height of
60 meters, 6/ one-half the design height. Its completion will
necessitate the pouring of an additional 1.8 million cubic meters
of concrete. 7/ The period of basic construction will take about
nine years (1$55-63). Several more years of finishing work prob-
ably will be needed before final commissioning, The number of con-
struction workers at the site has increased from 12,000 in 1956 8/
to 40,000 in 1961. 9/
Situated in a sparsely settled region where support facilities
were virtually nonexistent, the Bratsk project has been kept on
schedule at the expense of other nearby industrial sites originally
planned for simultaneous development. For example, officials at the
Korshunikha iron mining and concentrating combine have complained
that the construction of the Bratsk GES was taking manpower and
materials from that combine, setting its construction schedule behind
more than a year. 10/ A similar' situation has existed with regard
to the paper-cellulose combine under construction nearby. 11/ In
addition, a thermal powerplant in the district is more than a year
behind schedule, and completion of housing for workers in the first
seven months in 1961 reached only 28 percent of the target. 12/ Con-
firmation of the slowdown in nearby industrial development was pro-
vided by Khrushchev, who stated that there would be no local con-
sumers for the initial output of the Bratsk GES. 13/ The signifi-
cance of the slowdown in industrial development, however, lies not
so much in the lack of consumers (the iron mining combine and the
paper combine could use only a fraction of the output of Bratsk GES)
as in pointing up the difficulty of supplying a number of major con-
struction projects in a relatively underdeveloped region. Because
most of the large Soviet hydroelectric powerplants planned for the
future will be constructed under conditions similar to Bratsk, it
is possible that they too will strain the manpower and material,
resources of lesser priority industries, causing a subsequent un-
eveness of industrial development in the region concerned.
18 December 1961 CIA/RR-CB-61-62
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Analyst:
Coord:
Sources:
Electric Power Network, c .
2. CIA. ORR/EM 61-23, Availability of Electric Power from the
Bratsk Hydroelectric Power ant to the ngars Nun ear
Materials Site, Dec 61. S.
3. CIA. ORR/EM 61-20, Development of the East Siberian Unified
4. Pravda, 12 Mar 60, p. 2. U.
5. Novikov, I.T., Elektrifikatsiya SSR, vazhneyshiy faktor
sozdaniya mater a no-te n c es oy bazy ommun zma
(Electrification of the USSR--One of the Most Important
Factors in the Creation o the Material and Technologi-
cal Basis of Communism), oscow, 1960, p. 49. U.
6. Pravda, 16 Oct 61, p. 3.
7. Novikov, op. cit., (no 5), p. 52.
STATSPEC Stroitelnaya azeta, 5 Nov 61, p. 3. U.
9. Stroitelnaya gaze a, 6 Nov 61, p. 3. U.
10. Izvestiya, 2 De 60, p. 2. U.
11. Izvestiya, 24 eb 61. U.
12. Izvestiya, 2 Aug 61, p. 3. U.
CIA/RR-CB-61-62
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