Zai State Regional Power Plant

the largest thermal condensation power plant in the Tatar ASSR. Located in the village of Novyi Zai. Design capacity is 2.4 gigawatts (GW; millions of kW). Design capacity of the first section is 1.2 GW, and its average annual output is 7.8 billion kilowatt-hours.

Construction was begun in 1956. The first unit started up in 1963, and the first section started operation at full design capacity in June 1966. In 1969 the first unit of the second section was started; in 1970 two additional units began operation. In early 1972 there were 11 turbine units installed in the machine room of the power plant, each rated at 200 megawatts (200,000 kW). To supply technical water requirements, a hydroengineering complex was constructed, including a cooling reservoir with a cooling surface of 16.7 sq km. This power plant is a part of the Integrated Power Grid of the European Part of the USSR and supplies electric power to the city of Kazan and to the Tataria oilfields.