FCC Construcción

Tsankov Kamak Dam, in Devin, about 220 kilometres from Sofia and 70 kilometres from Plovdiv, near the Greek border, is Europe's biggest power plant. It is being built by FCC's Austrian subsidiary Alpine.

The idea is for the dam to harness the hydroelectric energy-producing potential of the 21.5-kilometre-long central section of the river between two larger reservoirs. Tsankov Kamak Dam stands 130.5 metres tall, 27 metres wide and has a crown length of 480 metres. The reservoir will hold a total of 110 million cubic metres of water and have a maximum water surface of 3.27 square kilometres.

The Tsankov Kamak power plant will have a total installed generating capacity of 85 +1 MW (2 x 42.5 MW), which will generate 188 +10 GWh of electricity each year, assuming for calculation purposes that the plant is run to capacity for 2,220 hours per year.

The plant's capacity and flexibility will help boost the productivity of the systems already in the power production network. The hydroelectric power plant system operating on this river (which is one of Bulgaria's largest and has excellent hydro energy production potential) has a total capacity of over 400 MW, and it includes four turbine power plants and one pumped-storage power plant.

The new Tsankov Kamak hydro energy plant is the first project that is going to use the flexible mechanisms provided by the Kyoto Protocol, via the joint application of climate protection mechanisms. According to estimates, the CO2 reduction will come to about 200,000 tons per year.