Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:44Thanks to my profession, I have visited many different corners of our
00:00:48country, but every time I admire the beauty of
00:00:51Belarusian nature, endless forests, fields,
00:00:55thousands of lakes and picturesque rivers, and
00:00:58water is our... national treasure,
00:01:02but have you ever thought that it's not just
00:01:04beauty, but also a powerful source of energy?
00:01:19After all, water is one of the most rebellious elements on the planet, it is capable
00:01:22of destroying roads, flooding entire villages, but in this case, man
00:01:26found a way to come to terms with nature, hydroelectric power plants.
00:02:30and environmentally friendly generation, without harmful
00:02:33emissions into the atmosphere. The largest complexes are the Vitebsk
00:02:37HPP and
00:02:37Polotsk.
00:02:45The Vitebsk hydroelectric power plant is the most
00:02:48powerful in the country. It is located on the Western Dvina, one of the
00:02:52largest rivers in Belarus, second in terms of
00:02:54water content after the Dnieper. Its length is 328
00:02:58km, average width. The channel varies from 50 to
00:03:02300 m. The current is quite fast, which allows
00:03:06it to be a source of energy. The local HPP is
00:03:09a typical run-of-river, low-head
00:03:11hydroelectric power plant, including
00:03:14concrete, overflow and earthfill
00:03:17dams, a switchyard.
00:03:21Let's go through the main characteristics: annual electricity generation
00:03:25is 138 million kilowatt-hours, power
00:03:28is 40 MW, reservoir area. 1.82 hectares,
00:03:32capacity just over 4 million cubic meters,
00:03:35commissioned in 2017.
00:03:38According to project
00:03:41values, the HPP should generate 138 million
00:03:45kilowatt-hours per year. In
00:03:48practice, if we take the statistics for the last 5 years, this figure has
00:03:51fluctuated from 127 to 157 million
00:03:55kWh per year, but this all depends on the river's
00:03:58filling, because. the main and only source of energy
00:04:01is the water in the Western Dvina river.
00:04:04Our generation depends on the year, on precipitation, on
00:04:08snow cover in winter. A large
00:04:12hydroelectric power plant could have appeared here much earlier, in
00:04:151956 the Vitebsk Sea project
00:04:18was created. Its main goal was a global economic and
00:04:22ecological restructuring of the region. 15
00:04:25research institutes of the USSR
00:04:28planned to turn the upper reaches of the Western Dvina into a powerful
00:04:32energy and transport hub, and a powerful Vitebsk HPP
00:04:35was also planned here. The artificial sea would create
00:04:39a gigantic head of water, necessary for the turbines to operate at full
00:04:43capacity. The river was supposed to become part of the country's deepwater
00:04:46transport system, which would allow large-tonnage
00:04:50vessels to freely travel from the regional center to the Baltic
00:04:54Sea and back, but the idea remained
00:04:57just an idea. At that time for its implementation.
00:05:12For electricity, the question of building
00:05:15a cascade of hydroelectric power plants on the Western Dvina river, consisting of
00:05:19four stations, was worked out: the Vitebsk hydroelectric power plant,
00:05:21Beshenkovichi HPP,
00:05:25Polotsk HPP and Verkhnenskaya HPP. All this
00:05:28began with the implementation of the Vitebsk HPP.
00:05:40If we talk about the current stage of the HPP's operation,
00:05:44four horizontal capsule hydro units
00:05:48with a capacity of 10 MW each are installed here. The energy generated as a result of water pressure
00:05:51goes to a step-up transformer
00:05:55substation. Passing through the winding turns, every
00:05:5810 kW received increases to 110. All
00:06:02the electricity generated here is sent to
00:06:06the common looped system, so it is impossible to say exactly where it
00:06:09is used, but it is understandable.
00:06:39Here we have, for example, a little churning right now. How expedient is it to build, construct, and operate a HPP then? Well, regarding the churning? This so-called
00:06:43churning is the exit of water from the flow-through
00:06:47turbine, that is, it is a water flow that rushes from
00:06:50the upper pool and presses on the turbine blades, exits into the
00:06:53lower pool, and creates such churning.
00:06:57The generation of electricity, yes, as you
00:07:00said, in mountainous areas there are more powerful
00:07:03hydroelectric power plants. Our operating principle is similar, but due to
00:07:07the fact that we have a small difference between the levels of the upper
00:07:10pool and the level of the lower pool of water, that is, as
00:07:14I said, the nominal head is 9.1 m.
00:07:17For the simple layman, head is the difference
00:07:21in water levels. Due to the difference in water levels, we create
00:07:24a head. That's why 10 MW turbines were designed
00:07:28here, because it was not expedient
00:07:32to install more powerful turbines here. At the Vitebsk
00:07:35HPP, taking into account round-the-clock operation, 29
00:07:38people work, 10 of whom are operational personnel, and 19
00:07:42are managers, specialists, and workers. The work is fully
00:07:45automated, readings from all sensors are displayed on
00:07:49a special panel. In the machine hall, at a depth of seven floors,
00:07:52hydro units are installed. Every
00:07:55second, about 70 cubic meters of water pass
00:07:58through the generator's guide vanes. When the river is full, their
00:08:02number reaches 123
00:08:04cubic meters.
00:08:10On your screens, the navigable.
00:08:13Let's clarify immediately, it does not belong to energy workers,
00:08:16although it is located on the territory of the Vitebsk HPP, but it cannot
00:08:20be ignored, it is very impressive. This is
00:08:23a single-chamber, single-line lock, the length of the usable chamber
00:08:27is the inner part, limited by special signs or
00:08:30gates, whose dimensions allow a vessel to be safely placed and passed,
00:08:3494 m, width
00:08:3713.5 m, water level difference 13
00:08:40m.
00:08:45In the Vitebsk region there is the second most powerful station,
00:08:48речь of the Polotsk HPP. It is also located on the Western Dvina -
00:08:52it is a low-head run-of-river station,
00:08:55including an earthfill and concrete overflow dam
00:08:58with six segmented gates. The design
00:09:02head is almost 8 m. Let's compare the characteristics
00:09:05of the two complexes. The capacity of Polotsk is slightly more than
00:09:0821.5 megawatts, Vitebsk -
00:09:1240. Average annual generation - 112 million
00:09:15kilowatt-hours versus 138, the number of
00:09:18hydro units at Polotsk is 5 turbines, at Vitebsk
00:09:214. We are in the machine hall, here we have
00:09:25the main equipment located. They
00:09:28consist of five hydro units.
00:09:31We are directly next to the steel penstock,
00:09:35in which the main
00:09:39hydraulic power equipment is located.
00:09:42Here at the moment we have the multiplier itself,
00:09:45that is, it is a gear transmission that transmits
00:09:49the rotational moment to
00:09:52the generator, and this energy is converted into electricity
00:09:56by means of the generator's excitation system and is then
00:10:00transmitted to the substation, released into the grid. The Polotsk HPP
00:10:03is designed taking into account the ecology of lowland rivers. The low head
00:10:07of water minimizes flooding of the surrounding
00:10:10territory, preserving the natural landscape. Again, everything
00:10:13is automated, that is, you don't need to turn valves
00:10:17manually, the computer itself calculates how much water flows in the river and
00:10:20automatically changes the angle of inclination of the blades to
00:10:24generate... maximum current. If the level
00:10:27drops, accordingly,