Plans to build a dam at Kurobe Lake were planned as early as 1928, however that originally plan was scrapped after local opposition to building a dam in a national park as well as the troubles of World War II. After the end of the war, most of Japan's power needs were covered by hydro-electric power, but a drought led to major power shortages in 1951 that led to daily power disruptions for consumers. This led the Kansai Electric Power Company that managed power in the
Kansai (関西, Kansai) region to look for new sources of power. After several studies, it was announced in 1955 that the Kurobe Dam would be constructed and construction began in 1956.
The Kanden Tunnel (where the Kanden Electric Bus runs today) was built in order to transport materials in from Ogimachi in from Nagano Prefecture (長野県, Nagano-ken) for the dam's construction. During the construction of the tunnel, a major Fault Crush Zone measuring 80m was discovered. Fault Crush Zones were areas where cracks occured due to geographic changes leading for it to become more permeable to water, and the result was large amounts of water to come gushing out. Building through this 80m took a whole seven months, delaying construction. It was only in 1959 when the foundation for Kurobe Dam could finally be laid, and construction was finally completed in 1963. The power station itself is built completely underground to be safe from avalanches and prevent damage to the national park, and it has four turbines that were progressively installed from 1961 to 1973.
The dam itself has an infamous history as one of Japan's most dangerous construction projects, with 171 people who died during its construction. A monument to the fallen workers can be found at Kurobe Dam today. It was a massive project, said to have involved over 10 million workers across different parts of the project, and the sheer scale of it led it to be nicknamed as the "project of a century". The sheer complexity of the construction project inspired the 1964 novel, The Sun of Kurobe (黒部の太陽, Kurobe no Taiyō), which was adapted into a film in 1968 and spawned two television drama adaptations in 1969 and 2009. Thus the dam itself is widely known in popular culture in Japan.
