The Spytihnev Hydroelectric Power Station

Pursuit of achieving maximum utilization of the Morava river´s flow through Spytihnev Hydropower Plant led to fitting two turbo-generating sets in the plant.

Pursuit of achieving maximum utilization of the Morava river´s flow through Spytihnev Hydropower Plant led to fitting two turbo-generating sets in the plant. The technical conception of the plant, which was put into operation in 1951, was a product of the general social atmosphere after the year 1948. Although the creation of the grid connection in the republic was on the rise, Spytihnev Hydropower Plant was probably designed against another possible war conflict in Europe and a possible threat to electricity supplies to citizens from the connected energy system; for so called start “from the dark“.

The plant has two vertical sets with fully controllable Kaplan turbines. For unknown reasons, it was built for design head of only 3.8 m and installed capacity of 1,920 kW, despite the fact that the height of the weir and the shape of the Morava river basin under the weir enable reaching a head of over 6 m and output of up to 3,000 kW. When the head was heightenned to 5.8 m in the 70´s, a fundamental technical discrepancy between too large turbines on one side, and too small generator with a low service output, on the other side, arose. In the 90´s of the last century, a temperature-rise test of both generators was carried out. It showed that the permanent load of the generators could be higher than the service output and the plant has been operating at the maximum output of 2,600 kW since then.