Snowy Hydro has lifted the lid on some of the work it is completing for Snowy 2.0, underscoring the immensity of the pumped hydro project.

An underground power station the size of the Sydney Opera House is being built 800m beneath the surface, with more than 733,000m3 of underground excavation – equivalent to 293 Olympic-sized swimming pools of material – completed.

Drill-and-blast methods are carving out subterranean caverns, with tunnel boring machines (TBM) excavating kilometres underground to build out Snowy 2.0’s tunnel system.

A fourth TBM has been commissioned to support the project, named after Monica Brimmer, the winner of a First Nations art and storytelling competition.

Commencing operations in the coming weeks, the TBM will be tasked with excavating a portion of a 17km-long headrace tunnel that passes through the geologically challenging Long Plain Fault Zone.

“Like the original Snowy Scheme, Snowy 2.0’s delivery is one of the most complex feats of engineering currently underway in the world,” Snowy Hydro chief executive Dennis Barnes said.

“Snowy 2.0 is the lynchpin of our energy transition, storing enough renewable energy to power three million homes for a week.

“More than half of the energy storage Australia needs by 2050 will come from Snowy 2.0 alone.”

Snowy Hydro has achieved an additional three per cent of completion since October, with more than 5200 workers working across four project workstreams.

Snowy 2.0, which is the pumped hydro expansion of the Snowy Scheme, has a design life of 150 years.

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