Creating a dam on the Svratka River was first proposed at the beginning of the 20th century; however, the idea was not realized until 1936–1940. The main investor was the then Ministry of Public Works. Apart from the city of Brno, Země Moravskoslezská (the former province-level government) took a financial interest of 25% in its construction. The swell of the reservoir begins under the weir at the Tejkalův Mill in
Veverská Bítýška and spans nearly 10 km to the dam on the border of the
Brno-Bystrc and Brno-Kníničky districts. The flooded area covers 259 ha. The inactive storage reaches up to 7.6 million m³; the reserve space is 10.8 million m³. The concrete dam is 7.14 m wide at its crown and 120 m long. It rises 23.5 m above the river bottom at an altitude of 233.72 m. The hydroelectric plant uses one
Kaplan turbine with an output of 2.88 MW (the installed output is 3.1 MW). In case of an island operation (in other words, if the plant is disconnected from the network system, such as in the case of a breakdown of the
electric power transmission), the turbine can be used to set a gas combustion turbine in the heating plant “Červený mlýn” in motion. A
small hydro in Brno-Komín serves as a buffer tank. At the end of the
Second World War the retreating
German Army placed mines in the nearby roads, placed a barrel with
trinitrotoluene on the dam (the explosives were originally supposed to be placed into the dam piping, but it was sealed with concrete due to an order to protect it from sabotage), and stationed some machine guns in the house of the dam guard Šikula. Šikula, together with a few people hidden in the power plant room, warned a convoy of the Red Army about the German plans and prevented the dam from being destroyed. Šikula was shot and wounded. There is a plaque in his honor at the dam today. == Tourism ==