A dam being modernised, a hydropower plant replacing a turbine or refurbishing its valves and trash racks, is a large-scale metal project. Turbine runners, shafts, spiral casings, penstocks, valves, intake trash racks, overhead cranes, transformers and cabling: every hydraulic work concentrates tonnes of steel, cast iron, stainless steel and copper, part of which regularly reaches end of life during maintenance and rehabilitation programmes.
What makes these sites special is the combination of three constraints rarely found together elsewhere: water under pressure, high voltage, and works often isolated in mountain areas. You do not dismantle a turbine like you clear a workshop: every intervention is prepared with the operator, scheduled into a shutdown window, and carried out under strict hydraulic and electrical lockout. This guide reviews the metal stocks, sorting, safety and collection logistics for dams and hydropower plants in Morocco.
The metal stocks of a dam and a power plant
The first stock is the turbine-generator set: Francis or Kaplan runners, shafts, distributors, spiral casings and draft tubes, in cast steel, cast iron or stainless steel depending on the part and its exposure to erosion and cavitation. Add the auxiliaries — governors, bearings, cooling systems — and generator casings, whose copper windings are recovered separately. Our article on recovering used electric motors explains the separation principles that apply to these rotating sets.
The second stock is the work itself: steel penstocks, guard valves and butterfly valves, intake trash racks and screens, stop logs, walkways, guardrails and handling structures, and the machine hall overhead cranes. Then come the electrical installations — transformers, busbars, copper power cables — and auxiliary sets, compressors and standby generator sets. For sorting principles between ferrous and non-ferrous metals, our guide to sorting metals in business remains the reference.
A third stock, often overlooked, is the small metalwork of the site: gates, fences, stairways, cable trays, pipe supports and signage structures, together with the metal furniture of control rooms and workshops. Individually modest, these items add up across a whole dam site, and grouping them into a single sorted lot at the end of a campaign avoids the scattered piles that end up mixed with rubble.
Turbines, penstocks and valves: dismantling without destroying value
Dismantling a turbine is precision work: the parts are massive, sometimes several tonnes, and their value depends as much on the metal grade as on surface condition. The right method is to remove assemblies in reverse order of installation, identify each part — runner, shaft, distributor, stainless wear parts — and separate the streams on the ground: carbon steel, stainless steel, cast iron and copper from the windings. Cutting after identification, not before, avoids mixing grades that belong to different channels.
For penstocks and valves, prior cleaning changes everything: sediment deposits, limestone concretions and coating residues must be removed before cutting, so the metal can be qualified correctly. Large valves are cut into transportable sections, preserving the stainless parts — stems, seats, sealing elements — which must never join the ordinary steel lot. Intake trash racks, often in galvanised steel, are grouped separately, as their coating requires distinct treatment.
Safety: water, high voltage and confined spaces
No collection starts without the complete lockout of the work concerned: draining and isolating the penstock, locking the valves, de-energising neighbouring electrical equipment and obtaining the operator's written confirmation. The hydraulic risk comes first — a sudden water release or an unexpected valve operation in a gallery or penstock can be fatal — followed by the electrical risk on high-voltage installations and the fall risk in shafts, galleries and elevated machine halls.
Confined spaces deserve particular attention: headrace galleries, penstocks and casings require ventilation, atmosphere measurement and outside supervision before any entry, even for a simple dismantling inspection. Lifting heavy parts — runners, penstock sections, crane elements — is prepared with a dedicated lifting plan, suitable slings and cordoned exclusion zones. MOUMETAL works only within the prevention plan agreed with the operator, and never forces an intervention outside a validated shutdown window.
Coordination with the operator also covers the unexpected: a change in river flow, a sudden need to restart a unit, or weather that makes a track impassable. A named contact on each side, a daily briefing before work starts, and a clear stop rule when conditions change are what keep a hydraulic site intervention safe from the first day to the last load.
Oils, hydraulic fluids and decontamination before cutting
Before any cutting, every item must be drained: turbine governing and lubricating oils, hydraulic fluids from valve actuators, transformer oils and auxiliary-set oils. These fluids are collected in sealed, labelled containers and sent to their dedicated channels — never onto the ground, into drains or into the watercourse. Transformers deserve particular attention, as explained in our guide to recovering used electrical transformers.
The rule is simple: never cut equipment still charged with fluid, and never mix oil-contaminated metals with clean lots. Cutting areas are fitted with retention trays, floors are protected, and used absorbents are collected with the fluids. This prior decontamination protects the teams, preserves the aquatic environment — a major issue at a dam site — and avoids an entire lot being refused for contamination.
Logistics for remote sites and maintenance shutdown windows
Many Moroccan hydraulic works sit in mountain areas, at the end of narrow tracks, sometimes hours from a main road. Logistics is therefore prepared as an operation in its own right: surveying access and clearances, choosing trucks suited to the tracks, setting up a consolidation point at the foot of the site, and phasing rotations so access is not saturated during the works. The heaviest parts may require exceptional transport or on-site cutting into transportable elements.
The schedule, meanwhile, is set by operations: collections are timed to programmed maintenance shutdowns, often in low-water periods, when the plant is already stopped and the operator's teams are mobilised. For a rehabilitation programme covering several units or several works in the same valley, a staggered collection schedule clears volumes gradually, without clogging the machine hall or the work areas. For water and wastewater works, our article on water and wastewater scrap metal in Morocco complements this guide.
Finally, document every load: the unit it came from, the metal families it contains, and the date of removal. This inventory is what lets the operator close out the maintenance campaign, justify the decommissioning of replaced assets, and feed its environmental reporting with reliable figures rather than estimates.
FAQ — Scrap metal from dams and hydropower plants
Can a turbine be dismantled without stopping the plant? No: the unit concerned must be locked out — drained, hydraulically isolated and de-energised — before any dismantling. The work is scheduled into a shutdown window validated by the operator, during which the other units can keep running.
What happens to removed penstocks? After cleaning off sediment and coatings, penstock steel is cut into transportable sections and sent to the steel recycling channel, while stainless parts are isolated for their own channel.
Must equipment be drained before cutting? Yes, systematically: turbine oils, valve-actuator hydraulic fluids and transformer oils must be recovered in sealed containers before any cutting, and sent to their dedicated channels.
How is a collection managed at a remote mountain site? By surveying access in advance, using trucks suited to the tracks, setting up a consolidation point at the foot of the site and phasing rotations. The heaviest parts are cut on site into transportable elements.
Are transformers and cables treated like scrap? No: transformers are drained then dismantled to separate copper, steel and oils, and power cables are handed over with their insulation for stripping in-channel, without burning.
Recover metals from your hydraulic works with MOUMETAL
Operators, maintenance contractors, engineering firms and hydraulic works companies: MOUMETAL collects and recovers metals from your dams and hydropower plants in Morocco, from the removed turbine to the penstock, with collections timed to your maintenance shutdowns and full traceability. To go further, read our guide to sorting metals and our scrap metal buying page. Contact us: +212 660 690 806 — contact@moumetal.com.