Drawing to completed facility: Chief Engineer of the Zatonskaya CHPP has visited the plant

Usually, Chief Engineers can see facilities being under construction as trenches, ditches, construction materials left everywhere, dirt, many equipment items, and permanently tight deadlines. In three years after the startup, Vitaly Kuchanov came to the plant previously seen as a 3D visualization model only, but he still remembers all packages of detailed design documentation issued under his approval as the “Chief Project Engineer”.

One of the most advanced Russian plants, Zatonskaya CHPP in Ufa, met his CPE with white pipes and a perfectly clean area. “It looks exactly the same as modern plants in Germany and Portugal I could visit”, said Vitaly, “and this is so incredible to see the facility you saw provided with building ladders, with the equipment moving everywhere and the equipment awaiting its turn for installation”.

The basic design was performed by the Energy Engineering Center in Bashkortostan in 2010. Vitaly Kuchanov was appointed a Chief Project Engineer in 2011 and supported the detailed design and construction process until 2016 together with his colleagues from ZAO “COTES”. Many solutions were adapted to modified standards, due to supplier changes, and different conditions of construction and equipment. Some solutions were detailed or improved, almost all of them were implemented. The new Zatonskaya CHPP was commissioned in 2018.

Vitaly Kuchanov was pleased to note that the plant is very environmentally friendly and has a minimum amount of drains as designed. For example, rainfall runoffs are collected at the plant and returned to the cycle. But a dry sludge remained from chemical water treatment is formed in briquettes which are used for vertical territory planning by local agricultural producers. Moreover, the plant has a high level of comfort for the personnel. It comprises convenient training rooms, canteens, a medical station, and security points. And surely, it is beautiful and has a modern look which appears at the final stage, and rarely can be seen by those participating in construction.

“When you solve operational issues, year by year, study drawings, issue lots of documentation and work at the facility with field supervision, you cannot believe that some day, it is going to end up. And then, one day, instead of a construction area there’s a facility in all its beauty, which alone is inspiring enough to make you do the same 10 more times. But the point is that all challenges, problems and additional works are worth assessing from the viewpoint of future operations. If several weeks of additional hard work would help you to implement bold ideas or provide reliability or safety of operation, it’s worth it. I recommend everyone that, in difficult times, you remember this, and I mean more than only CPEs”.