“Congratulations to our contractor Strabag and the hundreds of men and women who worked with extremely difficult rock conditions to safely complete this engineering marvel,” said president and CEO Ontario Power Generation Tom Mitchell. “This was a large, complex project that will serve Ontario for more than 100 years.”
The tunnel is channelling additional water from the Niagara River to flow to the Sir Adam Beck generating station at a rate of 500m3 per second. This will supply Ontario with enough electricity to power the homes and businesses of a city the size of Barrie, which has a population of more than 135,000.
The project is the largest hydroelectric scheme to come into service in Ontario for the past 50 years. When under construction, the Niagara Tunnel Project was the largest renewable energy project of its type anywhere in the world.
The tunnel is as high as a four-storey building, and is water flow rate of 500m3 per second is fast enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool in a matter of seconds.
Lining the tunnel used about 500,000m3 of concrete and the 600mm-thick wall is made of cast-in-place concrete.
Got a story? Email news@theconstructionindex.co.uk
