Turkey’s highest dam begins to hold water

ARTVİN

Yusufeli Dam, a hydroelectric power plant built in on Çoruh Stream in Turkey’s northeastern province of Artvin, has finally started to hold water.

“We have completed the body filling of Yusufeli, the highest dam of our country. Our dam started to hold water,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on Twitter.

Becoming Turkey’s highest dam with its 275-meter-high concrete wall, the facility will be able to meet the electricity needs of nearly 2.5 million people.

The structure also stands out as the third highest dam in the world’s “double curvature thin arch dam type” category.

The dam, which took nine years to build and includes a power plant with an installed capacity of 558 megawatts, is expected to amortize its cost in seven years.

The Yusufeli district, where nearly 7,000 people live, has been flooded to accommodate the dam project and the residents of the settlement were relocated to a new settlement that was determined by authorities.