September saw the ground breaking ceremony, conducted by the Minister of Energy for Sri Lanka, on the $49m Kukule Ganga Hydro Power Project. The ceremony was carried out under the supervision of Bengt Johansonn, president of Skanska International Civil Engineering, contractor for the project.
The run-of-river project is located 70km south east of the capital, Colombo in the District of Ratnapura. The area is very hilly but has favourable rock conditions for underground excavation.
Construction will include a 5.7km long horseshoe shaped headrace tunnel. The mostly unlined tunnel will have a diameter of 6.4m and a paved invert. The tailrace tunnel will be 1.6km long with the same specifications as the headrace tunnel. Other underground works include a 61m long, 7.5m diameter surge shaft, a 140m long, 4.8m diameter vertical pressure shaft and a 29 x 16 x 52 m3 powerhouse.
The headrace tunnel will be excavated in a single pass from the surge shaft adit and in heading and bench from the intermediate adit. The tailrace tunnel will be excavated mainly as a single pass from the powerhouse. Excavation will be carried out using drill jumbos. The shafts will be constructed by a combination of raise boring and shaft sinking.
The project construction time is scheduled to begin in February 2000 for completion in 45 months and is being financed by a loan from the Overseas Economic Co-operation Fund of Japan. The Client is the Ceylon Electricity Board under the Sri Lanka Ministry of Irrigation and Power.
