Immense Power

(Notte: this photo was taken back in September.)

The Xingó Dam is a concrete face rock-fill dam on the São Francisco River on the border of Alagoas and Sergipe, near Piranhas, Brazil. The dam was built for navigation, water supply and hydroelectric power generation as it supports a 3,162 megawatts (4,240,000 hp) power station. It was constructed between 1987 and 1994 and the last of its generators was commissioned in 1997. In Portuguese, the dam is called the Usina Hidrelétrica de Xingó. The Xingó Dam's power station is directly southwest of the dam and is 240.75 metres (789.9 ft) long, 59 m (194 ft) high and 27 metres (89 ft) wide. It was designed by Promon and contains 6 x 527 megawatts (707,000 hp) Francis turbines that were manufactured by Siemens. The plant also is designed to accommodate another four identical generators that if installed would bring its installed capacity to 5,270 megawatts (7,070,000 hp).