The Portuguese Tunnelling and Underground Space Comission is the member nation of ITA. CPT is a gourp of SPG, aiming at promoting research and development activities in tunnelling and cooperating with foreign similar organizations.
CPT has 131 individual members and 14 collective members
Two major activities are to be noted. The first is the editorial work for the publication of the book “Túneis em Portugal” due next year.
The second, the cooperation within the six member nations partner group (Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Portugal) with a meeting in Modane (France) last October.
Working Group 1 has been very active during the year of 2012 preparing of the forthcoming book "Túneis em Portugal", with a bi-lingual edition in Portuguese and English.
This follows a past Seminar for presentation of data of several Portuguese Tunnels, which was basilar for the startup of the book preparation. The book publication is due in the beginning of 2014.
Due to the on-going financial and economic difficulties in Portugal, the underground works during 2012 were only those related with hydroelectrical power systems.
The Portuguese electricity company (EDP) has been upgrading the installed power in several dams and building new ones.
Regarding the power upgrade projects one may quote Salamonde II (power to be installed: 207 MW), Alqueva II (256 MW) and Venda Nova III (746 MW).
On what concerns the construction of new dams, the construction activity of Baixo Sabor dam (170 MW), Foz Tua (250 MW) and Ribeiradio Ermida(80 MW) dam continued during 2012. In both types of projects, underground works included the construction of the electrical central and the appurtenant hydraulic tunnels.