Binational Itaipu power plant celebrates 30th year in operation

The Itaipu hydroelectric power plant is celebrating its 30th year in operation this Monday (May 5). Over the course of these years, the plant generated 2,167,763,264 megawatt-hours – enough to supply power to the entire planet for a month, seven days, 11 hours and 41 minutes. Alternatively, the period’s accumulated production could supply Latin America with the energy it needs for more than two years and five months.

“These figures are outstanding, especially if we bear in mind that behind this undertaking are Brazil and Paraguay – two countries viewed at the time as peripheral, and not capable of embarking into such an ambitious enterprise,” Itaipu’s Director-General Jorge Samek told Agência Brasil.

Located on the Paraná River, which forms the border between Brazil and Paraguay, the hydroelectric facility generates 2.8 thousand direct jobs, 1.4 thousand in each country. In order to build it, a $27 billion investment was raised by national and international agencies. Its debt currently stands at $13 billion, and around 60 percent of the yearly expenses are dedicated to paying this debt.

“It’ll be paid by 2023. After then, operation costs will be the only ones we’ll have, which might result in lower fees, if that’s what the government’s interested in. Another strategy that may be adopted is keeping the price unchanged in an effort to expand the sector through the financing of more power plants. There’s yet a third plan, consisting in combining the previous two,” explains Celso Torino, Itaipu’s Operation Superintendent.

So far, Itaipu has distributed royalties totaling $280 million throughout Brazil. Out of this total, 45 percent was allotted to municipalities affected by floods, 45 percent to the states and 10 percent to the Ministries of Mines and Energy; Science, Technology and Innovation; and the Environment.

In spite of no longer being the plant with the highest installed capacity in the world (second now only to China’s Three Gorges power plant, with 22.4 thousand MW) Itaipu is still the greatest energy producer, with 13 thousand MW, due to the volume of water going through its turbines.

“Our location is what makes us special and more productive than the Chinese plant, although our installed capacity is lower. No other plant gets as much water as Itaipu does. All the water from the Paraná Basin [formed by rivers whose sources are situated in six different Brazilian states] reaches this station. The same water that goes through 45 other plants also generates energy here at Itaipu, underscoring how indisputably renewable this central facility is,” Samek notes.

The quality of the power plant is further highlighted by Luiz Pinguelli Rosa, Director of the Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute for Post-Graduate Studies and Research in Engineering (“Coppe”): “Itaipu is an engineering masterpiece. In terms of maintenance, a truly efficient system […]. In 2001, when the country had to introduce energy rationing, Itaipu’s operation was not interrupted. A large number of plants had no more energy supplies, but this was not the case at Itaipu, where water was plenty. The problem lied in energy transmission. If there was a structure [for transmission] like today’s, we would certainly have had better conditions to tackle the issue,” he told Agência Brasil.

Over the course of its 30 years of operation, the power plant generated more than just energy. “We’ve generated a lot of knowledge. The expertise developed during the construction of Itaipu, especially due to information technology professionals, scientists and environmentalists, was also applied in our technological complex,” he remarked.

Among the projects developed at Itaipu were the Brazilian electric car and accessories for this kind of vehicle, like solar and hydraulic batteries. “We’ve considerably improved techniques for the storage and production of energy through hydrogen,” Samek reiterated.

Itaipu also develops social technology. Technicians have implemented systems for generating energy from cattle faeces which contaminated the plant’s reservoirs. The faeces are transformed into biogas and used to supply electric energy to local farms. “Hundreds of agriculturists and five cooperatives have adopted our technology. The remaining waste is used on crops as manure,” Itaipu’s director explained.

The importance of the plant in the development of the region goes beyond national borders and benefits Paraguay tremendously. “The plant is a paragon of international cooperation, as Paraguay was then utterly incapable of starting such an enterprise, which was to become the world’s largest energy generator,” Samek added.

Paraguay was recently provided with a second transmission line, 350 km long. It connects the plant to the country’s capital, Asunción.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira