Génissiat Dam
The dam is a gravity dam Génissiat that. Injoux in the Rhône - Génissiat, about 40 km downstream of Lake Geneva, impounds a narrow lake of about 20 km length When it was completed in 1948 that was its affiliated power plant, the largest hydroelectric power plant in Europe.
Technical information
The dam is operated by the Génissiat Compagnie Nationale du Rhône ( CNR). The dam consists of 440,000 cubic meters of concrete. It is 104 meters high and 165 meters long at its upper edge. Below it is 57 meters above 9 meters thick. The pent-up lake has a volume of 53 million cubic meters.
The hydroelectric power plant at the foot of the dam has six units with vertical Francis turbines of a maximum capacity of 66 MW. The electrical energy is highly excited at 220 kV and fed on Institutions for Electricité de France in the European electricity grid. The average annual energy production is 1.7 billion kWh.
Architectural History
In 1902 Léon Mähl had proposed to build at Génissiat a hydroelectric power plant, which was to supply Paris with electricity. Construction began in 1937 as the first power plant project, which was founded in 1933 CNR. Architects were Albert Laprade, Pierre Bourdeix, Jean Vernon and Bruno Philippe. The construction of the dam was carried out by a specially established company consortium. By the spring of 1939, had two underground channels completed, the led out of the Rhone on a length of 600 meters from her bed. This was necessary so that the foundations of the dam could be placed. During the occupation of France in World War II the site was flooded and the building work rested. Until liberation, the site was a local center of the resistance in the region. The work was resumed in the summer of 1945. In the summer of 1946 3.000 workers were deployed and installed 300,000 cubic meters of concrete. The dam was completed in late 1947 and the lake at 19-20. January 1948 filled within just 36 hours with water. The power plant was connected by high-voltage lines with Paris and Lyon. On March 19, 1948, dined for the first time a current. At the opening ceremony on August 1, 1948, the French President Vincent Auriol described the building as a French Niagara and called him an example for the reconstruction of France.