Kakhovskaya HPP named after. P.S. Neporozhniy is part of the Dnieper cascade of six hydroelectric power stations. Completed by the mid-1970s, the cascade of hydroelectric power stations on the Dnieper (Kyiv, Kanevskaya, Kremenchugskaya, Dneprodzerzhinskaya, Dnieper and Kakhovskaya) and large reservoirs with it made it possible to carry out annual regulation of the Dnieper flow, to use it for power supply, water transport, and irrigation of lands in the south of the Ukrainian SSR ( now Ukraine) and the northern part of the Crimean Peninsula, improve water supply to the industrial areas of Krivoy Rog and Donbass.

Kakhovskaya HPP is the sixth, lower stage of the Dnieper cascade.

The decree on the construction of the station was adopted on September 20, 1950. Council of Ministers of the USSR. The hydroelectric complex was erected in 1950–1956 by the special construction and installation department “Dneprostroy”. The first of six turbines was installed on October 18, 1955. The hydroelectric power station with an installed capacity of 312 MW was put into commercial operation on October 19, 1959. New Kakhovka was formed on the site of the village of Klyuchevoe with the start of construction of the station, and in 1952 it received the status of a city.

As a result of the construction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station, the water level of the Dnieper in 1955–1958 formed the Kakhovka reservoir. Residents of several dozen settlements were resettled from the flooded area – about 37 thousand people in total.

In 1979, the North Crimean Canal was put into operation, through which water from the reservoir flowed into the low-water and arid territories of the Kherson and Crimean regions of the Ukrainian SSR.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in Ukraine during the 1990-2020s, repair, reconstruction and renewal of hydroelectric power station equipment was carried out in several stages. In particular, the Turboatom enterprise (Kharkov) replaced turbines on all six hydroelectric units of the station, the installed capacity of the hydroelectric power station increased to 334.8 MW. Also on the territory of the station, a new sanitary building was built, the hydraulic engineering workshop was restored, etc.

In 2000, the station was named after Pyotr Neporozhny (1910-1999), Minister of Energy and Electrification of the USSR in 1965–1985, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In Ukraine, a plan was being worked out to increase the installed capacity of the station by introducing additional hydraulic units – the construction of the Kakhovskaya HPP-2 with a capacity of 250 MW. In 2020, by order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the station expansion project was included in the list of priority investment projects. As of 2022, preliminary surveys were underway, but construction of HPP-2 had not begun.

In 2021, the station’s full-time workforce was 215 people. The owner of the station was the Ukrainian state company Ukrhydroenergo.

Kakhovskaya HPP is a run-of-river, combined type, low-pressure hydroelectric power station with rotary-blade turbines. It was equipped with a single-chamber navigation lock. A road and a railway passed through the station’s hydraulic structures. The station included a 154 kV power transmission line.

maximum head – 16.5 m;
installed capacity of hydroelectric power plants – 334.8 MW;
average annual electricity production – 1,420 million kWh;
capacity – 2,500 cubic meters. m/s;
dam length – 3,850 m;
The total capacity of the waterworks is 21,400 cubic meters. m/s;
reservoir volume – 18.18 cubic meters. km;
water surface area – 2,155 sq. km.
The Kakhovka Reservoir provided water supply to the adjacent Ukrainian regions, as well as the delivery of water to the North Crimean Canal and recharge of the cooling pond of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.