GOVE HYDROPOWER DEVELOPMENT - ANGOLA

A feature on one of Hydropower Projects in Angola.

The GOVE dam is located in the Province of Huambo, some 120 km South of the town of Huambo. It was built with the main purpose of flood control of the Cunene river flows and was completed in 1975. The dam was subject to sabotage actions (in 1986 and 1990) that endangered its exploitation.

In the former design a hydroelectric power plant was planned to be incorporated in the dam. Thus, this plat is now part of the works to be executed

The consortium COBA/PROGEST was in charge of the detailed design and tender documents for the dam rehabilitation as well as the associated infrastructures and the design of the new hydropower plant.

Dam:
The Gove dam site covers a basin area of 4 667 km2 and the reservoir, with the NWL at (1590,00), has a storage capacity of 2547 x 100 m3.

The Gove dam has a homogeneous embankment cross-section and a rockfill toe. The maximum height above the foundation is 58 m and the crest length is 1 112 m. The dam volume is 4 x 106 m3.

Given the sabotage damages, the dam and existing infrastructures were object of rehabilitation studies that comprised:

- Rehabilitation of the dam nearby the left abutment; foundation treatment for reinforcement of the cut-off structure; treatment of longitudinal and drainage galleries to minimize the seepage and to improve the consistency of the interface fills of the gallery; protection of downstream rockfill face to prevent the serious evolution of erosion and the migration of fill fines;

dam external drainage; drainage pumping system and drainage at the toe of dam; dam heightening in 1 m; dam monitoring plan; remedial actions in the water intake and in the bottom outlet; repair and strengthening of the initial protection of the outlet channel affected by erosion;

repair and improvement of lighting and electrical power supply to several dam infrastructures; control and prevention of the serious evolution of gullying; improvement of the dam left abutment ring road and the Operators building area;

rehabilitation and improvement of lodging-house and operators building area; rehabilitation of the airfield pavement ant upgrade the movement area according to the ICAO’ standards applicable to an Airfield code 2C.