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The Clyde Dam, New Zealand's second-largest hydroelectric dam, is built on the Clutha River / Mata-Au near the town of Clyde. It is owned and operated by Contact Energy.
There was also debate about whether the dam was needed. National's support for a controversial aluminium smelter at Aramoana, another of Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon's Think Big projects of the late 1970s and early 1980s, was one justification propounded for the dam. An initial grant of water rights for the dam was overturned by the High Court following an appeal by landowners. National overturned this decision, after bargaining for the support of Social Credit (who had initially opposed a high dam), in the Clutha Development (Clyde Dam) Empowering Act 1982. The Act was later repealed by the following National government on 1 October 1991, when it was superseded by the Resource Management Act 1991.
The dam was constructed between 1982 and 1993. Filling it was done in four controlled stages beginning in April 1992, and completed the following year, creating Lake Dunstan. The power station has a capacity of four 120 Volt-ampere (116 megawatts) (for a total of 464 MW), but was only allowed to run 432 MW due to resource consent conditions. The dam was built with two additional penstocks, allowing additional turbines to be installed in future. The resource consent was changed in 2005 to allow the full 464 MW to be produced.
During construction, the adjacent rock was discovered to be microfractured, because of an earthquake fault running underneath the dam site. The dam was redesigned, losing a sluice channel and cutting its generation capacity from 612 MW to 464 MW. A slip joint was built into the dam to accommodate 1–2 metres of potential ground movement, Fault Provisioned Design Examples , Chapter 7 in Key Points for Rational Design for Civil-Infrastructures near Seismic Faults Reflecting Soil-Structure Interaction Features , Japan Society for Promoting Science, 2007.Eileen McSaveney. Earthquakes - Building for earthquake resistance , Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Updated 2 March 2009. and a large amount of slurry cement was pumped into the rock to stop water leaks. This additional work was one reason for a major project cost overrun, which made the dam the most expensive in New Zealand. The other areas of overrun were due to stabilisation of landslides in the Cromwell Gorge.Michael J. Crozier. Landslides - People and landslides, Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Updated 2 March 2009.Vicki Hyde (1990). Slip Sliding Away, New Zealand Science Monthly, November 1990 (Via Archive.org). There are over 18 km of tunnels throughout the gorge for draining purposes. Because of all this extra work it overran the budget by nearly an extra 50% and delayed the filling of Lake Dunstan by a few years.
Maintenance workers accidentally activated fire alarms in the dam on 15 December 2008. The alarms triggered the release of a large bank of cylinders at the generators, flooding the equipment with the gas. Extractor fans to clear the then activated, and firefighters with breathing apparatus and gas detectors checked through the dam to ensure it had cleared.
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Trivia
The Clyde Dam, while still under construction, was used for on-location filming in the 1985 movie Shaker Run.
See also
Notes
Further reading
John E. Martin (1991). 9780908912162, Bridget Williams Books Ltd and Electricity Corporation of New Zealand. ISBN 9780908912162
(1994). 9780908562121, Square One Press. ISBN 9780908562121
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