Carried out within the framework of a comprehensive renovation program held by RusHydro, the new equipment manufactured by Power Machines increases the plant’s capacity by 10MW.
The company has checked the functioning of the unit’s separate components and systems and carried out no-load trial runs on the hydropower unit in December 2013.
Additionally, the company has completed commissioning and start-up with trial run during which the unit was successfully operated under load in the network for 72 hours.
The acceptance committee has approved the start of the operations at the plant following these testing results.
Verkhnevolzhye HPP Cascade director Andrey Derezhkov said the old unit at Rybinskaya HPP was put in operation back in the beginning of 1942.
"The new one is produced using state-of-the-art technologies and materials, it has high technical and economic performance and is fully compliant with current environmental requirements," added Derezhkov.
As part of the renovation program, RusHydro will continue to replace outdated and obsolete equipment at the hydro plants of the Volga-Kama cascade.
The company is expected to replace the remaining three units at Rybinskaya and a unit at Uglichskaya by 2020 that will result in an increase of the capacity in the cascade by 50MW.
