Itaipu dam modernisation contract awarded to GE consortium

• 5 years ago (2018-11-15)
• David Flin

Hydropower 112 Latin America 77

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A consortium of GE Power and CIE Sociedad Anonima has won a contract from Itaipu Binacional to modernise the Itaipu Dam in Brazil, one of the world’s largest hydropower plants. Itaipu Binacional has announced that it has launched a 10-year programme to modernise the plant, replacing obsolete equipment installed 30 years ago with modern technologies and machinery.

The three-year contract will focus on the electrical modernisation of 24 overhead cranes, essential to lift the heavy equipment for the modernisation. The lifting equipment, dating from 1984, has a lifting capacity from 10 to 1000 tons. GE will provide AC motors, low-voltage drives, and programmable logical controllers and encoders. These will help extend the cranes’ lifetime for another 20 years. This upgrade will be the first step of the modernisation project for the station.

The Itaipu dam is located at the border between Brazil and Paraguay. The dam is nearly 200 m high and 8 km long, with a total power generation capacity of 14 GW.