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Itaipu hydro plant sets productivity record for third consecutive year

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Itaipu hydro plant sets productivity record for third consecutive year

For the third consecutive year, Itaipu Binacional is on track to break its own productivity record at the 14 GW Itaipu hydro plant.

The Itaipu plant, on the Parana River, is shared by Brazil and Paraguay. The hydroelectric plant was expected to close 2021 with 1.098 MW produced for each cubic meter of water flow per second (MW avg/m³/s), the highest productivity level in its 37 years of operation. The value is higher than marks set in 2020 (1.087 MW avg/m³/s) and 2019 (1.079 MW avg/m³/s). The month with the highest productivity was July, with 1.1221 MW avg/m³/s.

“This was another dry year [in Brazil], so producing more with less water was crucial. The excellence of the binational team and the business-tailored technology are the best tools to achieve our goals,” stated the executive technical director of Itaipu, Celso Torino.

Itaipu Binacional said that the relationship between productivity and droughts is like fuel consumption in a car. When the goal is to save fuel, it is necessary to drive at an ideal RPM, neither too high nor too low. The same happens in the generating unit: when it is at the best operating point, energy production will be such that water consumption will be as low as possible.

High productivity was essential in a critical hydrological year like 2021. The average inflow (the amount of water that reaches the reservoir and is used for energy production) was 6,956 m³/s, the worst since 1983, and corresponding to 61% of the average observed in the period.

With water scarcity, power generation was also below average, with production expected to reach 66.5 million MWh, or 74% of the annual average for the previous 25 years. Even so, this energy is more than one day of the world’s electricity consumption and enough to supply Brazil for a month and 12 days or Paraguay for almost four years.

Productivity is an index calculated by the relationship between the amount of energy generated and the usable discharge (the volume of water that passes through the generating units, measured in cubic meters per second). It is different from production, which means the absolute amount of energy generated in a given time.

According to Torino, the productivity record is due to a series of factors, such as the efficient management of resources, the Brazilian and Paraguayan teams’ commitment, and the governing board’s guidelines. “This all resulted in the transformation of each drop of water that entered the reservoir into energy,” he said.

For the technical board, a series of factors contributed to the plant’s good performance and, consequently, the achievement of productivity results. Among them, the partnership with the Itaipu Technological Park (PTI); the use of software from the Electric Energy Research Center (Cepel); and the coordination with the Brazil’s national grid operator (ONS) and the Paraguay Electricity Administration (ANDE). Studies carried out by the groups of the Mixed Operation Commission — involving Eletrobras, Ande, Furnas, and Itaipu Binacional — and the various areas of Itaipu that provide support to the technical board also were credited.