The tallest stone arch dam in Poland on the Bóbr river, damming the waters of Lake Pilchowickie, with a working hydroelectric power station.
Pilchowice Dam is the tallest stone arch dam in Poland, second in height only to the dam at Solina. It dams the waters of the Bóbr river near the village of Pilchowice, forming Lake Pilchowickie, one of the larger artificial reservoirs in Lower Silesia.
The decision to build the dam was made after the flood of 1897, which showed how severe a rise in the Bóbr's waters could be. Construction was carried out by the firm B. Liebold & Co. AG to a design by Professor Otto Intze and Dr Curt Bachmann, under the direction of Albert Cucchier. Work took place between 1902 and 1912. After the dam was put into use, the Bóbr rose again many times, but the structure withstood each new flood wave.
The dam is 62 metres high, 290 metres long at the crest and 140 metres at the base. The wall is 50 metres thick at the base, narrowing to 7 metres at the crest.
Lake Pilchowickie covers an area of 240 hectares, and reaches a depth of 46 metres by the dam, holding around 50 million cubic metres of water. A hydroelectric power station equipped with Francis and Kaplan turbines operates at the dam, which, besides flood protection, generates electricity.
The area around the dam has appeared in the game "The Vanishing of Ethan Carter" and in the Netflix series "Hound's Hill", where the power station buildings were shown as a psychiatric hospital.
The dam lies within the Bóbr Valley Landscape Park, not far from the Lenno palace complex and the Góra Zamkowa nature reserve.
Be the first! Add a comment.
You need to log in to add a comment.
Log in