Described as one of the civil engineering wonders of the modern world, the Snowy Scheme consists of nine power stations, 16 major dams, 80 kilometres of aqueducts and 145 kilometres of interconnected tunnels.

POWER STATIONS
The Snowy Scheme consists of nine power stations, including two that are underground.
Tumut 3 Power Station is a pumped-hydro facility which is capable of generating and pumping by recycling water between Talbingo Reservoir and Jounama Pondage. It was the first major pumped-hydro plant built in Australia and remains the largest such facility in Australia today .
After the Scheme was built, two new small hydro stations were constructed on existing Snowy Scheme dams: Jindabyne Mini Hydro Power Station, on Jindabyne Dam, and the Jounama Small Hydro Power Station, on Jounama Dam, to capture the otherwise wasted energy of water releases from these storages.
The nine Snowy power stations comprise 33 turbines with a total generating capacity of 4,100 megawatts (MW) and produce on average, 4,500 gigawatt-hours of renewable electricity each year.
NAME | CAPACITY (MW) | NUMBER OF UNITS | YEAR OF COMPLETION |
Tumut 3 | 1800 (generating) 600 (pumping) |
6 | 1973 (upgraded 2012) |
Murray 1 | 950 | 10 | 1967 (upgrade underway) |
Murray 2 | 550 | 4 | 1969 |
Tumut 1 | 330 | 4 | 1959 (upgrade underway) |
Tumut 2 | 287 | 4 | 1962 |
Blowering | 80 | 1 | 1955 |
Guthega | 60 | 2 | 1955 |
Jindabyne Mini Hydro | 1 | 1 | 2009 |
Jounama Small Hydro | 14 | 1 | 2010 |
The Scheme’s infrastructure also includes the Jindabyne Pumping Station, completed in 1969. This pumps water from Lake Jindabyne through the Jindabyne-Island Bend Tunnel and Snowy-Geehi trans-mountain Tunnel to Geehi reservoir, where the water is used for electricity generation in Murray 1 and Murray 2 power stations.
DAMS
The Snowy Scheme consists of 16 major dams.
NAME | TYPE | HEIGHT (m) | CREST LENGTH (m) | GROSS CAPACITY (103m3) | YEAR OF COMPLETION |
Talbingo | Rockfill | 161.5 | 710.0 | 920 600 | 1970 |
Eucumbene | Earthfill | 116.5 | 579.1 | 4 798 400 | 1958 |
Blowering | Rockfill | 112.2 | 807.7 | 1 632 400 | 1968 |
Geehi | Rockfill | 94.1 | 265.2 | 21 100 | 1966 |
Tumut Pond | Concrete Arch | 86.3 | 217.9 | 52 800 | 1959 |
Jindabyne | Rockfill | 71.6 | 335.3 | 689 900 | 1967 |
Tooma | Earthfill | 67.1 | 304.8 | 28 100 | 1961 |
Island Bend | Concrete Gravity | 48.8 | 146.3 | 3 020 | 1965 |
Tumut 2 | Concrete Gravity | 46.3 | 118.9 | 1 500 | 1961 |
Tantangara | Concrete Gravity | 45.1 | 216.4 | 254 100 | 1960 |
Jounama | Rockfill | 43.9 | 518.2 | 43 500 | 1968 |
Murray 2 | Concrete Arch | 42.7 | 131.1 | 1 760 | 1968 |
Guthega | Concrete Gravity | 33.5 | 139.0 | 1 550 | 1955 |
Happy Jacks | Concrete Gravity | 29.0 | 76.2 | 270 | 1959 |
Deep Creek | Concrete Gravity | 21.3 | 54.9 | 5 | 1961 |
Khancoban | Earthfill | 18.3 | 1 066.8 | 21 500 | 1966 |
TUNNELS
The Snowy Scheme consists of 145km of inter-connected tunnels and pipelines and 80km of aqueducts.
The Snowy Scheme comprises two main developments, the northern Snowy-Tumut Development and the southern Snowy-Murray Development. Both developments are connected by tunnels to the Snowy Scheme’s main regulating storage, Lake Eucumbene, on the Eucumbene River.
The table below outlines the details of each of the tunnels.
NAME | LENGTH (km) | % LINED | YEAR OF COMPLETION |
Eucumbene-Snowy | 23.5 | 19.7 | 1965 |
Eucumbene-Tumut | 22.2 | 28.3 | 1959 |
Murrumbidgee-Eucumbene | 16.6 | 17.7 | 1961 |
Snowy-Geehi | 14.5 | 13.3 | 1966 |
Tooma-Tumut | 14.3 | 20.0 | 1961 |
Jindabyne-Island Bend | 9.8 | 10.6 | 1968 |
Guthega | 4.7 | 11.6 | 1955 |
Murray 2 Pressure | 2.4 | 100 | 1969 |
Tumut 1 Pressure | 2.4 | 100 | 1959 |
Tumut 1 Tailwater | 1.3 | 54.5 | 1959 |
Tumut 2 Pressure | 11.3 | 100 | 1961 |