Record-low water levels on the Danube forced Budapest’s Kelenfoldi power plant to carry out emergency dredging to maintain access to cooling and raw water, highlighting the growing operational risks drought is creating for thermal generation.
The intervention was completed in early August at a cost of around €55,000.
Around 300-400 cubic metres of sediment were removed from a 50-metre section of the plant’s bay, lowering the riverbed by approximately 50-100 centimetres.
It was the first dredging operation of its kind during the plant’s more than 110-year history.
Kelenfoldi depends on the bay for cooling and raw water and also provides district energy services. During summer, it supplies hot water to almost 41,000 households and around 1,800 public institutions, while winter operations include district heating.
Conditions deteriorated further in September. The Budapest Danube gauge fell to just 1 centimetre above its reference zero on Sept. 8, the lowest recorded level, although actual river depth through the city remained around 3-3.5 metres on average.
The previous record of 28 centimetres was set only at the end of July.
Rainfall in the upper Danube catchment could provide some relief, but the episode shows how prolonged drought is increasingly affecting not only hydropower output and river transport but also the cooling-water security of thermal plants.
