Costing $8.74 billion, the Belo Monte Dam rising over the Xingu River in Amazonia will generate just 4,500 megawatts per year on average—or more than one-third of its 11,233-MW installed capacity—due to environmental restrictions that have reduced the reservoirs’ size. Still, engineers call it the most daring project under way in Brazil.
Advancing at four independent sites, the project is expected to enter into commercial operation in 2016. Once completed, Belo Monte would operate with the natural flow of the Xingu, and the amount of power to be generated is expected to be the equivalent of 10% of Brazil’s national energy consumption. In power effectively installed, it would be the third-largest hydropower complex in the world after Three Gorges, in China, with 20,300 MW, and Itaipu, between Brazil and Paraguay, with 14,000 MW.