It is a part of the Dospat–Vacha Hydropower Cascade (500.2 MW) development of the Vacha River involving five dams and seven power stations in the provinces of Smolyan, Plovdiv and Pazardzhik, 250 kilometres (160 mi) southeast of the capital Sofia.

[4][5][6] Initial estimated cost of the project was Euro 220 million financed by many banks and equipment manufacturers, including VA TECH Finance, Bank Austria Creditanstalt, BNP Paribas Fortis, Raiffeisen Zentralbank, Société Générale, and Credit Suisse First Boston.

[4] The carbon emission reduction due to building the Tsankov Kamak HPP is assessed at about 200,000 t CO2 (228,000 tons of СО2 including the four rehabilitation projects of the cascade).

[2] The hydropower potential in the river between Sredna and Vacha had remained unexploited under the five dams development initiative, but is now utilized through the Tsankov Kamak project.

Due to this geological feature, particularly at the intake structure, an area of about 6,000 square metres (65,000 sq ft) was required to be plugged in the Gashnia Valley.

At the end of the year 2003, Alpine Mayreder, an Austrian company, was awarded the civil works contract of the project.

The equipment supply and installations were awarded to Austrian group of suppliers, Andritz Hydro for HEM – equipment and Pöyry Energy GmbH for engineering with Energoproekt Hydropower as a Bulgarian Co-designer of the project[5] The project was financed by export and commercial credits, which were finalized in Vienna on 14 November 2003; the financial credit without any backup guarantee by the Government of Bulgaria.

Insurance coverage for the export credit of €100 million was provided by Coface of France; Hermes of Germany; EKN of Sweden and Egap of the Czech Republic apart from the Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (OeKB) which has also covered political and the commercial risks.

[4][12] Construction of the project was considered a challenge in view of the terrain and geologically weak structural region.

[12] Work was carried out continuously, involving 535,000 cubic metres of concrete delivered by a crane of 26 tons capacity, which was erected across the river over the dam.

[5] The double curved arch dam is 130.3 metres (427 ft) in height with a reservoir water spread area of 3.27 square kilometres (1.26 sq mi).

[2] The spillway has four bays located in the middle section of the dam controlled by radial gates of 8 m x 8 m size each designed to pass a 1 in 1000 year frequency flood of 1,425 cubic metres (50,300 cu ft)/sec, which raises the water level to EL 687.42 m (all gates open condition) thus allowing for a free board of 1.42 metres (4.7 ft) to top of the dam.

[5] Slope protection in the 22 kilometres (14 mi) long stretch of the reservoir spread (up to a surface area of 3.24 square kilometres (1.25 sq mi)) also involved concreting to the extent of 40,000 cubic metres (1,400,000 cu ft) to take care of draw down condition for operating the power stations of the cascade under two daily peaks in the morning and evening.

This also has beneficial impact on other cascade development projects in the basin as the energy generation gets enhanced by a 48% increase.

An outdoor switch yard is provided next to the surface powerhouse with main two step up transformers of 50 MVA rating and voltage ratio is 10.5/240 kV.