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Snowy Features

 

 

·      The Snowy Mountains Scheme is located in Australia’s Southern Alps with a water catchment area of 5124 square kilometres, mostly within Kosciuszko National Park.

 

·      The Scheme has 145 km of interconnecting, transmountain tunnels and 80 km of aqueducts that collect and divert most of the inflows to the Snowy Mountains area.

 

·      There are 16 major dams with a total storage capacity of 7 000 (Gl), or 13 times the volume of Sydney Harbour. Almost 76% of this capacity, or 5 300 Gl, can be used for electricity generation and diverted to the Murray and Murrumbidgee Irrigation Systems.

 

·      Lake Eucumbene, the Scheme’s largest reservoir, has a storage capacity of 4 798 Gl or

9 times the volume of Sydney Harbour.

 

·      Entitlements to the water diverted from the Snowy River by the Scheme are shared between Victoria and NSW at approximately 25% and 75% respectively.

 

·      By providing a reliable source of water west of the Great Dividing Range, the Scheme assists in underwriting the production of $3 billion of agricultural products in the Murray-Darling Basin each year.

 

·      The Scheme’s operations are vital to river management, including flood mitigation, flow augmentation during drought and the control of salinity in the Murray River.

 

·      The Scheme’s seven power stations generate an average of 4 500 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity each year, which is approximately 7% of the total electricity consumption in NSW.

 

·      With a large generating capacity of 3 756 megawatts (MW), the Scheme represents approximately 4% of the total electricity generating capacity of southeast Australia.

 

·      It provides approximately 70% of the renewable energy supplied to the eastern mainland grid, displacing approximately 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year.

 

·      More than 100 000 people from over 30 countries worked on the Snowy Scheme between 1949 and 1974 with the workforce reaching a peak of 7 300 in 1959.

 

 

The Snowy Scheme

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