Hydroelectric plant and Julius Nyerere dam
Morogoro, Tanzania
Best project, Water/Wastewater
Presented by The Arab Contractors (Osman Ahmed Osman & Co.)
Owner: Tanzania Electric Supply Co. Ltd. (TANESCO)
Main design company: Artelia Group
Contractor: Joint venture of The Arab Contractors Co. and Elsewedy Electric
The Julius Nyerere Hydroelectric Dam aims to meet Africa’s growing demand for electricity and sustainable development. The project includes a dam 134 meters high by 1,025 meters long and a reservoir with a storage capacity of 34,000 million cubic meters. The nine 235 MW Francis turbines within the dam’s power plant will generate up to 6,035 GWh annually.
The dam is located in a remote and flood-prone area of Tanzania, more than 350 km outside of Dar es Salaam, in an area where the bedrock is heterogeneous, which required the project team to perform extensive geotechnical analysis and build more than 24 roads and bridges to deliver materials and labor equipment to the site.
The facility, which at its peak had more than 12,000 workers on site, is expected to contribute to Tanzania’s GDP and provide energy to neighboring countries. The project team facilitated the training of 5,000 Tanzanians and provided on-site housing for the workers.
According to The Arab Contractors, the project required ingenuity to meet the challenges. Among the advances in construction methods and technologies, the team used roller-compacted concrete in the dam structure. “This technique enabled efficient large-scale placement, reduced curing time and improved thermal control, addressing key challenges typically found in mass concrete works,” said the project team.
The construction of a diversion tunnel to divert the Rufiji River during the construction of the dam base was another challenge. “The design and execution of the upstream and downstream basins in flood-prone conditions required careful sequencing to ensure dry working environments and uninterrupted progress,” said the project team.
