Environmental issues are top of the agenda in Australia and the interest in energy sources dispensing with CO2 emissions is therefore correspondingly high. In the state of Victoria in the south-west of the continent, a hydropower station was planned in the form of the "Bogong Hydro Power Project" which would provide thousands of households with environmentally-friendly energy. A 6.5-kilometer tunnel was required to feed the water to the turbines. The tunnel route runs through hard granodiorite which demanded enormous stability on the part of the TBM and its tools.
This is not the first time the Herrenknecht Gripper TBM ordered by the client has been availed of: until July 2006, it was eating its way through the Swiss Alps near Lugano. After the machine had been refurbished and adapted to the project "down under", tunnelling was commenced in August 2007. The breakthrough was achieved by the S-378 on April 23, 2009.
