Snowy 2.0 project reaches new milestone

Snowy 2.0 is Australia’s largest storage project, aiming to deliver affordable, reliable power to Australians. The commissioning of the second TBM (‘Kirsten’) was, said Prime Minister Scott Morrison, another major achievement for the project, which was already creating thousands of jobs in the region.  

“Our AU$1.38bn (US$971m) investment in this project is already creating a local jobs boom, with a current workforce of more than 1,300 people and an expected 4,000 direct jobs over the life of the project, and many opportunities for local Australian businesses and suppliers,” he said. 

The new, approximately 11m-diameter single-shield, open-mode machine is expected to dig through around 30m of rock a day. It also has the ability to mine at steep angles: up to 5 degrees (9%) on declines and up to 25 degrees (47%) on inclines. 

Once the TBM – the most sophisticated of the three machines working on Snowy 2 – has excavated as far as the power station complex, it will tunnel at a steep 25-degrees to create the inclined pressure shaft. In total, the machine will excavate the emergency, cable and ventilation tunnels, the inclined pressure shaft, and 2km of the headrace tunnel. The first tunnel boring machine (‘Lady Eileen Hudson’), has already mined 1,000m at the main access tunnel.” 

The Snowy 2 project will significantly expand Australia’s pumped-hydro electricity generation and involves linking two existing dams, Tantangara and Talbingo, through 27km of tunnels; also to be constructed is a new underground power station. The scheme will see a combined total of 40km of tunnels excavated and is expected to complete in 2026.

In April 2019, the then Salini Impregilo (Webuild) won the AU$5.1bn (approx.US$3.59bn) contract as leader of the Future Generation contracting JV which includes Webuild’s US subsidiary Lane, and Clough (Australia).