The pneumatic gates installed at Slovenia’s Završnica power plant in 2018 were the subject of a paper presented at this year’s Slovenian hydropower conference, held in Laško from 21-23 March.
Located in the north of the country close to the Austrian border, the hydroelectric power plant at Završnica opened in 1914 and throughout its long history has been subject to several upgrades. The old wooden flashboards, an upgrade originally installed in the mid-1970s, had reached the end of their life span and after a period of consultation the owners opted to replace them with four Obermeyer spillway gates, each 1m high x 7.3m wide, with the gates’ new PLC control system interfacing with the existing Moste HPP’s SCADA system. Competitive in price and offering the automated regulation required along with minimal maintenance and clean operation, the gates were commissioned in the second half of 2018 and are the first of their type in the country.
The illustrated conference paper can be downloaded in full here (text in Slovenian).