Eng. Hikmat Haswa, 59, director general of the Euphrates Dam, tells how the members of ISIS, before the fighting ended in May last year, set fire to the central command room and blew up the eight electric units.
As a result, the station went out of service and the dam was at great risk. He told Asharq Al-Awsat: “At that time, maintenance workers and dam employees made tremendous efforts to save this facility. Today, everyone is keen to bring back the natural capacity of the dam as it was before 2011.”
Established in 1995, the Euphrates Dam - also known as Tabqa Dam - is one of the most important dams in Syria and the first hydroelectric plant in the country. It generates 880 MW per working hour when all of its eight units are functioning. Each unit has a capacity of about 110 MW.
Since his graduation from the Electrical Engineering Faculty at the University of Aleppo in 1982, Hikmat Haswa worked in the dam and currently serves as the General Manager of the Euphrates Dam Facility. After the liberation of the facility from the grip of ISIS, he returned to work with a few former employees, who were able to run Unit 8, which feeds the needs of the dam.
In September last year, Unit 3 was reactivated, while Unit 1 began operating few months later. “There are three units, out of eight, working 24 hours a day,” according to Haswa.
Eng. Ali Al-Rawi, 33, who graduated from the Department of Electronic Engineering at Aleppo University in 2010, started to work at the Euphrates Dam the same year. He is currently the chief dam engineer and chief automation officer.
He noted that the level of water at the Euphrates Dam lake has dramatically decreased.
“Currently, the lake does not feed more than two units 24 hours a day. Each unit generates between 105 and 110 MW.” Each unit needs 250 cubic meters of water per second, “but the quantity of water is not enough to feed all the units,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Well-informed sources said that initial talks were launched between Tabqa’s civil administration and the Syrian regime. The latter sent a delegation to visit the dam earlier this month that included engineers, technicians and maintenance workers, to fix and operate the dam, requesting security protection by the regime forces.
“However, the Syrian Democratic Forces and Tabqa’s local council refused the demand and promised the delegation protection by the local police,” the sources said.
The sources confirmed that the Directorate of Dams under the Ministry of Water Resources in the Syrian regime opened an official office at the dam location, noting that the majority of regime employees have returned to work.
In order to rehabilitate and reactivate the Euphrates Dam, Tabqa’s civil administration agreed with the regime delegation to return all the employees and experts to their work, in exchange for securing the spare parts and the operation of the dam again.
