Will the Cuervo plant be built on a geological fault?

Geological studies carried out by the University of Chile for Cuervo’s Environmental Impact Study indicate that a fault zone known as Liquiñe-Ofqui exists in the area where the project will be located. However, it is important to point out that the Cuervo plant will be located not over the main fault but tertiary extensions, a situation common to other installations of this and other types in Chile. According to the international expert in dam design, Guillermo Noguera, who is an active member of the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) and, through the EDIC engineering company, an advisor to the Cuervo project, “its installations are designed over an area where third-order extensions have been identified, not over the fault itself, and present-day engineering is perfectly capable of dealing with such situations… It should be remembered that, wherever a river exists, there is a situation of geological weakness and, in Chile, we have good examples of hydroelectric plants built where the conditions are not very different”.

Will the Cuervo Plant be safe in the case of a volcanic eruption or an earthquake?

Yes, it is designed to respond with total safety to the most extreme weather, seismic or volcanic events that could occur in the area. A precise understanding of the area’s conditions and how to address them from an engineering standpoint has been obtained through rigorous studies of the sector and its geology. “Given the geological conditions of the area of the dams, we did not, under Chilean regulation, which is among the strictest in the world, need to factor the risk of a severe earthquake into this project,” notes Carlos Andreani, project director of Dessau Chile, the engineering company responsible for Cuervo’s design. “But what did we do? We projected a scenario in which an earthquake of maximum intensity does, in fact, occur and took this scenario as our starting point for the project’s design,” explains the expert.

What preventive measures were taken into account when designing the Cuervo plant?

It is designed to respond with total safety to the most extreme weather, seismic or volcanic events that could occur in the area. According to Carlos Andreani, project director of the Dessau Chile engineering company responsible for Cuervo’s design, there were three key factors in its design:

1. Energía Austral requested that the most extreme scenarios be taken into account, regardless of the probability of their occurrence, in order to comply with the company’s own standards and ensure peace of mind for both the community and the authorities. This implied adopting standards higher even than those established in Chilean and international design guidelines.
2. A second factor was the requirement of an excellent level of information about the geological and geomorphological characteristics of the area of the dams in order to design them appropriately. Extensive research was carried by a team of scientists at the University of Chile‘s Geology Department as part of the project’s environmental evaluation as well as drilling campaigns and a series of specific geological studies.
3. A third factor in the dam’s design is the rock on which its foundations will be built. This is of an exceptional quality rarely seen in similar projects in Chile and is an enormous advantage as regards its stability.

What is the “special seismic joint” included in Cuervo’s design?

This is a concept, incorporated into the design of the Cuervo plant, involving modern technology that gives even greater stability to a gravity dam. It was also used in the modern Clyde dam in New Zealand, a country with intense seismic activity. This technology was developed by the Swiss engineer, Dr. Giovanni Lombardi, considered a “guru” of international engineering who participated in the project’s design concept and its subsequent review and approval.