Reventazón Hydropower Project

Challenges

The Reventazón Hydropower project is located on the Reventazón River in central Costa Rica and is operated by Costa Rica’s national electric company.  The facility began operations in 2016, becoming the largest hydropower facility in Central America with an installed capacity of 305.5 megawatts.  The facility includes four turbines and a 425-foot-high concrete-faced rockfill dam with a storage capacity of over 230,000 acre-feet.  The facility experienced a significant leak in the spillway less than two years after the dam was commissioned and was shut down for repairs.

Solution

RJH was retained by Cunningham, Lindsay International to provide dam safety expert engineering services to assist with an insurance claim.

RJH personnel reviewed existing information and participated in a site visit to become familiar with the facility.  The crack was the result of movement of the rock mass between the dam and spillway, which resulted in damage to the spillway approach channel, spillway gate/control structure, spillway chute, and drainage gallery. RJH identified site conditions and design failures that resulted in the dam safety incident.

RJH participated in several tabletop meetings to discuss the available and preferred actions for rehabilitation of the dam, including evaluating repair concerns, identifying new materials that would be beneficial to developing rehabilitation preferences, and developing a range of potential construction costs for rehabilitation concepts.  RJH developed a summary memorandum that was used by the client to advance their evaluation of the claim.