IN WINTER, THE APARTMENTS OF ALMATY RESIDENTS WILL BE WARM AND COMFORTABLE

Most of the residents of Almaty, as a rule, do not think about where and how electricity comes from in their apartments, and hot water in taps and heating batteries. And, of course, he has no idea how this complex and diversified economy has been functioning almost uninterrupted for many decades. That is why the proposal of the management of the Samruk-Energo Joint–Stock Company to acquaint journalists with the work of its subsidiary joint-stock companies – Almaty Electric Power Plants and Alatau Zharyk Companies – the main enterprises of the Almaty energy complex – aroused sincere interest among reporters.
The oldest Almaty power plant, CHP-1 on Seifullin Avenue, will celebrate its 80th anniversary in a year. This station can be called unique – it has been continuously providing heat and electricity to the city for eight decades. At the same time, for many years it was the most economical thermal power plant in the USSR! Of course, over all these years, CHP-1 has been repaired and modernized more than once. A few years ago, its boilers, originally designed for burning coal, were switched to natural gas, which dramatically improved the environmental situation in the city. However, during the reconstruction, a prudent decision was made to leave the possibility of these boilers working on coal and fuel oil. Now, if an emergency occurs and the gas supply suddenly stops, the station will be able to switch to another type of fuel without stopping. Its emergency reserve has also been created – more than half a million tons of coal, 45 thousand tons of fuel oil.
CHP-1 and CHP-2, which is located on the outskirts of the city, in the village. Algabas are designed for both hot water and electricity generation. However, the main volume of electricity is supplied to the city via 500 KV transmission lines from the north of Kazakhstan and from the south – from the Dzhambul thermal power plant and hydroelectric power plants of Kyrgyzstan. Kapshagai HPP, the newest and most modern Moynak HPP on the Sharyn River and a cascade of small hydroelectric power plants on the Bolshaya Almatinka River contribute. By the way, this cascade, which was built during the war and the first post-war years, is expected to be seriously modernized in the near future, replacing old Italian and German turbines of the 30-40s with modern equipment, as a result, electricity generation here will increase by 42 million kWh per year.
There is enough energy supplied to the city. The problem, which was very acute until recently, was something else. There were catastrophically not enough transformer substations that lower the voltage from 500 and 220 kilovolts to a lower one for further distribution to the districts of the city. Many people probably remember the accidents at substations a few years ago, which de-energized entire residential areas. As a result, a whole range of measures has been developed to improve the reliability of the city’s energy supply. Over the past five years, JSC AZHK, together with the Mayor’s Office of the city, built and modernized 29 transformer substations (TP) and soon the creation of a kind of ring of them around Almaty will be completed, each of which will insure the neighboring one. The most modern is the Ermensai shopping center, located in the southern foothills of the Alatau. The journalists who arrived at the substation noticed that talking about the new TP, Deputy Chairman of the Board of JSC AZHK Nikolay Tushinsky was sincerely proud of the results of his colleagues’ work.
The station is really beautiful and technically perfect. Firstly, it occupies several times less area than previous devices. Secondly, although the equipment of the world’s largest companies is not cheap, the station is much more economical than the old ones and energy losses are minimal here, it operates in automatic mode and requires several times less maintenance personnel. Thirdly, and most importantly, the station is disproportionately safer than the previous ones. Even plugging a plug into a home outlet can cause a spark – a small electric arc. Now imagine a switch with 500 thousand volts!
But here it is absolutely safe to turn on a voltage of 500 kW – the process takes place in a special gas environment and the arc does not occur at all. The possibility of fire is zero. Nevertheless, powerful transformers, when the slightest spark occurs, are instantly enveloped in a dielectric gas shell – this is another, completely unnecessary degree of safety.
-The main amount of hot water heating our houses is generated by CHP-2, built in the western part of the city behind the Burundai hill. It is more than 30 years old and was designed in such a way that only high-ash cheap Ekibastuz coal can serve as fuel for it. Although it was built with a large reserve of power, but the rapid growth of the city has already exceeded all calculations. The station needs to be expanded, fortunately, such a technical opportunity was provided. And construction of a new 8th boiler unit and an electric generator turbine will begin soon, which will be launched in 2016. And in the foreseeable future, there will be two more sets of the same.
A curious thing, it turns out, is that the hot water supplied from here to our heating batteries is of drinking quality! This was stated by Chairman of the Board of Almaty Electric Power Plants JSC Nurlan Mukhamed-Rakhimov, inviting journalists to the new, newly built heat reception complex on the territory of CHP-1. This complex receives water heated to 100 degrees from CHP-2 and distributes it through heating networks to the central, eastern and northern parts of the city. Historically, it was from here that the main heating networks diverge from the districts, and the old CHP -1 could no longer cope with the needs of the city. Now heat comes here from CHP-2 and is distributed along the necessary highways by only one dispatcher from a computer control panel. Huge valves and giant pumps are controlled by pressing a button on the remote control, hot water can be turned on, off or redistributed very quickly and with minimal losses. And this now makes it possible to duplicate stations if necessary, which is important in case of unforeseen situations.
It is possible to talk about the complex and very important work of the urban heat and power complex for Almaty residents for a long time – experts have given a lot of interesting and unexpected facts for the uninitiated, including how much effort is spent by thermal power engineers to keep power grids, transformer facilities, boilers and turbines, thermal mains in working condition. After the final briefing, at which Vladimir Li, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Samruk-Energo JSC, summed up the overall results of preparations for winter, journalists asked him when do you usually start preparing for winter?
“Our “winter”, the heating period, always ends on April 15th,” he said. – And the preparation for it is already the next day, on the 16th. The amount of work is huge, and there is very little time for this – only six months.”
Valery NOVIKOV.