CHPP-1: the heart of Almaty power industry and my destiny

Vladimir Georgiyevich SHMELYOV, pensioner, Deputy Chief Engineer of
AlES JSC, shares his memories

I have started to work at CHPP-1 as a mechanic of the 4th category on repair of electrical equipment on the 3rd of December 1983 – shortly after graduation from Pavlodar Industrial Institute, where I studied at the faculty of “Electric Stations”. My specialty is electrician-engineer. I chose my profession not spontaneously: my grandfather worked as the chief power engineer of the mine, which produced special clay for the steel industry. Therefore, I was attracted to this specialty since I was a child.

I was assigned to Alma-Ata. Although I had a higher education, I started my career as a laborer. It was a standard practice in those times: to become a good specialist, one had to go through all stages – from a laborer to engineering profession and manager. Having started as a fitter, I gained practical experience and, most importantly, learnt to use my knowledge correctly.

My first working day at CHPP-1 is well remembered: it was the eighth hour of the morning, dark. I am walking along the alley – there are very stormy flocks of crows on the tall trees. ‘As a crow cawing loudly’, – I thought and soon paid “for disrespect” to them: suddenly on me from somewhere above began to fall something white-dirty and sticky. In deep confusion, I still reached the office of the head of the electric shop at CHPP-1 – he was Nikolai Mikhailovich Sevastyanov. “So where did you come from, so fancy?” he asked me quietly. When I came to my senses, I realized what “fancy” outfit I was being asked about, as I was all in the signs of crow’s “attention”.

I consider that it was Nikolai Mikhailovich who became my first mentor. He, a high-class specialist, gave me a good professional school. I was lucky to have mentors at all.

Not long after, I was transferred as a foreman for repair of high-voltage equipment, and further on my career developed successfully: head of the electric shop – head of the station shift – senior head of the station shift – head of the boiler shop – deputy chief engineer.

Byrlyk Esirkepovich Orazbayev, an outstanding power engineer, whose name was given to CHPP-1, became a serious teacher for me. At that time he was the chief engineer at CHPP-1, and I soon became his deputy. During that period the rationalization movement was on the rise. Production workers wanted to improve the technical performance of the equipment in operation. They wanted to simplify the conditions of its operation and repair, to increase the reliability of the production process. All technical proposals of production workers were considered at the Technical Expert Council of the enterprise. It included heads of production shops, production services, and chief engineers of the plant.

At the beginning of my professional career the chief engineer of CHPP-1 was Kravtsov Valentin Tikhonovich, who later became the director of the newly built CHPP-2, and the chief engineer of CHPP-1 was appointed Byrlyk Esirkepovich Orazbayev. Both managers were ardent supporters of the rationalization movement.

I also happened to be a participant of this movement. Ideas and introduction of some innovations were implemented on the equipment, which had to be operated and maintained. These were 6 kV oil circuit breakers and hydrogen electrolysers, turbine generator gas posts and 6 kV disconnectors, 110 kV switchgear lighting system, generators, transformers and other power equipment.

The Technical Council issued certificates for all implementations, and the authors and co-authors were financially encouraged. Many technical implementations allowed the power equipment to work for a long time without any problems, and some equipment with implemented proposals is still working nowadays. Thus, thanks to this work, many production tasks were solved.

The 1980s of the last century is an interesting period. There is no war in the country; people live, believing in their expected future. Someone goes to kindergarten, school, institute, someone goes to work; someone is waiting for his distribution to this very job after graduation, and someone – already on a well-deserved rest. It was beautiful, there were no any disturbances. Everything is supposedly determined and predictable. It was just the right time for creativity. And there was creativity in that period.

It was particularly mass phenomenon in our production. There were whole competitive processes between brigades, workshops, and even between whole enterprises. Everyone competed. The winners were rewarded, even financially.

We took into account many things: production performance, absence of various production violations, participation in the social life of the enterprise, and, of course, creative activity. The production unit that won this competitive process was awarded the honorary title “Collective of Communist Labour” with payment of remuneration.

The team, in which I had the opportunity to work as a foreman, was fortunate to be in this honorable title. I remember that every member of the brigade was proud of his work. Everyone understood that his labor was noticed and was not done in vain.

One of the types of social activity at the production was holding clean-up days. Usually they were dedicated to the anniversary of the birth of the leader of the world proletariat V.I. Lenin. And since he was born in spring on 22 April, the clean-up days were held during this period. One of the Saturday spring days was appointed (usually all over the country), and people went out en masse to their production facilities to put their sites in order after the past winter. Sweep, scrape, clean, wash, whitewash, paint, and so on…To perform activities that was not available during other, core working hours. It was a useful endeavor.

Production facilities were transformed; everything was sparkling clean and tidy. All the rubbish accumulated over the past period, dirt was removed, and everything was cleaned up. Such clean up days were regularly held at CHPP-1. People would go there without any persuasion, in a good mood. They tried to do as much as possible at their sites.

The team, in which I had a chance to work, often performed work on the territory of open switchgear (ORU) 35 – 110 kV. During the work, the oily gravel under switches and transformers was replaced, equipment and high-voltage portals were painted, accumulated debris was removed, and fencing was repaired.

The work was always buzzing with excitement, with enthusiasm, there was no need to push anyone. That’s how, by common efforts all together supported their production, where they worked. At that time, everyone worked together, side by side, regardless of rank. Everyone waved shovels, swept with brooms, painted with brushes, loaded, unloaded, carried stretchers. And nobody grumbled or expressed dissatisfaction. Everyone was tidying up their production, their house. And it was all for free, on one enthusiasm. It was the unity of the collective into one whole, into a monolith. That is why, in the most difficult times for the country, the power industry did not fall, was not destroyed, because it was a united, creative unity.

One day, at the beginning of my professional career, Viktor Dmitrievich Levin, Director of CHPP-1, gave me a good advice: “Stick to the pipe”. So I held on to the chimney: in total, I worked at CHPP-1 until September 1994. True, with a small clarification: everything was done so that the chimney did not smoke black smoke, and pure white steam rose above it.

But the historical fact is that it was CHPP-1 that was originally the forge of personnel for the Almaty power industry. When I joined the company, it still had some equipment manufactured in 1935. Later it was dismantled. The equipment was rarified, but valuable, which was not only of historical, but also of practical value.

So, in front of the 8th generator on the side of the old building of the turbine shop there was an electric crane-beam. It is a hoisting mechanism with a hook, which served the generators. When the Belgians, who bought the company in the late 90s, saw it, they wanted to dismantle it, replace it and take it back. But CHPP-1 did not give it up. It was decommissioned only in 2022 during dismantling of the old machine hall building.

But a lot of obsolete equipment was modernized. For example, obsolete generators – electro-machine excitation was switched the thyristor system. At the same time a new GRU was built, new 6 kV circuit breakers – VMP, instead of obsolete VMG, were installed.

Working at an energy enterprise is connected with various dangerous situations. It is necessary to be very attentive to all actions performed by personnel during operation and maintenance of equipment. Non-compliance with the established regulated rules can lead to undesirable unfortunate consequences.

I remember one case when such carelessness in repairing a gas pipe resulted in significant damage to a working power boiler and the main building of the boiler shop. Then we had to restore everything 24 hours a day in an emergency. So, the power industry is not a humorous industry!

As it used to be: the Ministry of Energy annually allocated a budget for repairs and quotas for the supply of spare parts and materials for power equipment. It also determined for each energy enterprise a specialized contracting organization, with which contracts were concluded for repair of energy equipment – for repair of boilers, turbine units, electrical equipment, thermal insulation, chemical protection, instrumentation and control systems, repair of buildings and structures. Since the Ministry of Energy was common for all facilities, everything was planned by the same Ministry. We received spare parts and materials for power equipment directly from the manufacturing plants. In my time I travelled for spare parts and materials on business trips to different regions of the former USSR.

In my memory, the second half of the nineties was the most difficult for the power industry. The wear and tear of equipment was increasing. Due to the destruction of economic ties with the republics of the Soviet Union, supplies of spare parts and materials stopped. It became difficult to carry out repairs. In search of solutions to the problems, we had to start working with various local plants, such as those located in Almaty, AZTM, Hydromash, Kirov plant and others. At the same time, many factories did not have the necessary technologies for manufacturing the necessary materials. It was necessary to use not always qualitative materials and spare parts. Earlier the whole profile institutes developed the technology of production of a product for factories. But nowadays power engineers had to try everything by themselves.

The power industry as an industry was in a state of decline. And everyone was looking for a way out of the situation including industry leaders and authorities. The solution was to invite an investor who would be interested in production energy assets. So, on 13 August 1996, the Belgians came to Almatyenergo – the company called Trustebel became the new owner. And our complex became known as Almaty Power Consolidated CJSC or APC CJSC.

In 1998, when the Belgians were there, a new structural subdivision CPVT was created on the basis of fuel-transport shops of TPP, intended for unloading of railway cargoes and maintenance of railway tracks.

The beginning of the Tractebel team’s work was not easy. At the time of the Belgians’ arrival, I was working as a supply engineer for local equipment, and we started a difficult period of “fitting in”. It immediately became clear how different our and their approaches to the organization of the company’s work were, how different we were mentally. Nevertheless, it was a useful experience, but the main thing that they did was that they were able to organize and technically build up the work and keep the enterprise going. Another question is at what cost…

I remember, at CHPP-1 in 1996, one of the turbine generators was damaged, the stator winding was burnt out. The Belgians wanted to bring the generator from France to eliminate the consequences, but it was a long process, and the heating period was just around the corner. Our specialists found another way out and, not without difficulty, convinced the investors that it was possible to restore the burnt generator in the shortest possible time using their own resources. As a result, in two months, with the help of a local contractor and our specialists, the generator was rewound and put into operation. The Belgians were very surprised by the professionalism of our workers. For foreigners such an approach was strange. The turbine generator is still in operation.

Before the arrival of the Belgians, the oldest turbine-generator at CHPP-1 was the 8th turbine-generator, which had completed its service life. The Belgians organized the purchase and delivery of a new generator and turbine. Another important problem that the Belgians were able to solve was to increase the collection rate of payments, or, to be more precise, to instill a payment culture. They initially treated energy as a commodity that costs specific money: if you use it, if you buy it, you pay. At the time of their arrival, our collection rate was only 20 per cent of the invoices issued. They changed the situation dramatically. The collection rate has risen to at least 90 per cent. The Belgians managed to streamline the system of collecting payment for energy supplied. The algorithms they set are still in place today.

Despite the enormous resources and capabilities of the republic, by the end of the 1990s Kazakhstan had a deficient energy system. There were objective and subjective reasons for this. During socialism, we received about 40 per cent of electricity from outside, in particular from Kyrgyzstan, where electricity was cheap and we had a common network.

In the 90s, due to a complex of reasons, we had to resort to fan switch-offs. In addition, the wires were designed for a certain amount of electricity, so when overloaded, the transformers went out of order. We had to increase the capacity of transformer substations to ensure that they would accept electricity from outside.

At that time I worked as the director of the department and was engaged in technical research, capital repair and construction, as well as in issues of perspective development. Besides, the re-laying of the main heating networks required urgent solutions. Every year we had to replace about 10 kilometres of pipes. Their service life had long since expired – their maximum – 25 years, and after the big break with the arrival of the Belgians we resumed their replacement. It was a great deal of work.

After the termination of cooperation with the Belgians, there was organised CJSC “AIC”. In 2000 there were two changes – ZRC became ZTC – Western Thermal Complex. And APK CJSC became a part of KazTransGas CJSC and remained in its structure till 2001. Then the company was transferred to Almaty akimat.

Besides energy sources, its structure included city heat networks, as well as city and regional electric networks (today AZhK JSC). With this structure of AIC, the main emphasis on capital construction and future development was placed on the design and construction of new high-voltage electrical substations with a voltage of 6/10/35/110/220 kV, as well as on the re-laying of main heating networks. But in 2007 the structure dealing with these issues – AZhK – was separated from our company.

One more memorable occasion took place when AlES was already a JSC, when operative engineering solutions, ingenuity and high professionalism of all those involved were required. We are talking about an emergency that occurred at Kapshagai HPP. During the scheduled repair of a hydroelectric unit, it was necessary to remove the anchor, which weighed just over 400 tones, from the hydroelectric generator. But it so happened that during its pulling by two overhead cranes, one of them damaged a steel cable.

The enormous anchor hung askew six meters from the concrete floor. This was dangerous, as there were operating hydro turbines near the suspended load. And the management of AlES JSC entrusted me to supervise the work to eliminate the emergency situation. At that time we made special props, mounted a structure in the risk zone and managed to lower a four hundred tones anchor suspended on it. And then we replaced the damaged ropes of two cranes and lowered the cargo without incident. Despite the criticality of the situation, we were able to lower the anchor safely and quickly enough – within a week. The work was carried out around the clock. Both the contractor’s personnel and our own staff were involved.

I have retired now. Good memories keep me connected with the team, with the station. However, I am keeping an eye on the changes that are taking place in the company. In my opinion, since 2007 a new stage of the company’s development has been underway. At that time there was a separation of energy sources from the general energy system and Almaty Electric Stations JSC – AlES in the current composition was formed: CHPP-1, CHPP-2, CHPP-3, ZTC, Kapshagai HPP, Cascade HPP, CPWT, PRP “Energoremont”.

Now this period is marked by the fact that the process of renovation, commissioning of new capacities, reconstruction at energy sources is resuming. I hope that the current historical stage of Almaty power industry will be a stage of renewal.