Lake Tarnița

Lake Tarnița is a reservoir on the Someșul Cald river in the Gilău Mountains, where the communes of Gilău, Râșca and Mărișel meet, in Cluj County, west of Cluj-Napoca. The dam stands at the eastern end of the lake; further down the same river come the Someșul Cald reservoir and then Lake Gilău. The lake is part of the Someșul Cald hydropower scheme, built from the late 1960s onwards. The reservoir was put into service in 1973, and the 45 MW Tarnița hydropower plant started operating in 1974 with all its units. The dam is a double-curvature reinforced concrete arch dam, about 97 m high. In 2009 two small hydropower units of 800 kW each were commissioned at the dam. The lake covers about 220 ha and is about 8.4 km long, at a normal water level of 521.5 m, with a total volume of about 75 million m³. The crest of the dam carries a 6 m wide asphalt road. Fishing, rowing and kayaking take place on the lake. The lake is a hydraulic structure. The dam and the power plant are operated by Hidroelectrica. Did you know that the Tarnița, Someșu Cald and Gilău I power plants usually run in tandem? When Tarnița starts, the two plants downstream start too, because their reservoirs are too small to store the water released from Tarnița and would otherwise have to let it pass freely over the spillways.