Sika Products for Hydropower Plants

Compared to the natural wind or solar energy, the density of energy contained in flowing water is high and the technical effort necessary for its exploitation is less. Therefore the construction of hydropower plants is especially attractive when vast resources are at hand. Sika is operating worldwide scale with its own production facilities and sales organization in more than 55 countries.

Sika’s customers profit from the accumulated innovative research and development centers and a flexible organizational structure. They form the basic for a future-orientated global concept.

To succeed in international competition it is vital to quickly comply all available competence and to strictly focus it on target. This applies in particular to large construction project, where long-term function is prerequisite for huge investments. Sika, with its high durability products designed for maximum economical and ecological performance, established itself as a reliable partner in construction business. Here after a general view showing that Sika owing to its product range can support you from concrete production to steel corrosion protection.

Basically a hydropower plant consists to different concrete structures. A general concept will include diversion tunnel, power tunnel, intake towers, spillway, and tailrace outlet and powerhouse for instance. Some of those structures can be underground structures. Therefore excavation will take place first. During excavation it is imperative to stabilize rock substrate against collapsing. Usually shotcrete is applied in order to comply with this requirement. After the preliminary rock support, concrete lining will take place. This part of the project will consist to take all necessary actions to produce high durable concrete.

Due to special conditions, concrete will need to be protected by a coating. Indeed sometime due to high solid content of the water, therefore “abrasive” water, concrete must be coated by high abrasive resistance coating (like epoxy for instance).

The above construction concept could be called “civil work”. Beside that, in order to generate electrical power, turbine, runner penstock and gate will be part of the “mechanical work”. Those structures in steel will need also special treatment. Basically steel corrosion and abrasion resistance.

Based on its oriented global concept Sika is offering construction products covering 100% the whole hydropower plant project requirement.