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 3162 MW 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.

Construction

Studies for the Xingó Dam were done in the 1950s and contracts for construction were not awarded until 1982. Construction on the dam began in March 1987 but stopped in September 1988 because a debt crisis stalled funding. Construction commenced again in 1990 and by 1994, the dam was complete. On June 10, 1994, the dam began to impound the river as its reservoir began to fill. On November 15 of that year, the reservoir reached its maximum level of 130 m. The power station's first generator was commissioned in December 1994, the next two in 1995, two more in 1996 and the final generator in August 1997.

Dam

The Xingó is a 830 m long and 140 m high concrete face rock-fill dam. It contains five zones of 12900000 m3 of fill, mostly granite. Four saddles dams (dikes) are also used to support the reservoir. Directly northeast of the dam is its spillway with 12 floodgates and a maximum capacity of 33000 m3/s. The dam supports a reservoir with a 3.8 km3 capacity, surface area of 60 km2 and catchment area of 630000 km2. Part of the reservoir and the canyons upstream to the Paulo Afonso Hydroelectric Complex are protected by the 26736 ha Rio São Francisco Natural Monument.

Power plant

The Xingó Dam's power station is directly southwest of the dam and is 240.75 m long, 59 m high and 27 m wide. It was designed by Promon and contains 6 x 527 MW 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 5270 MW.