This Itaipu release was published using machine translation.

The important downspout of the Paraná River, whose flows - even since last year - are at levels lower than their historical average, is due to the low rainfall that affects the entire region, explained engineer Giovanni Gomes, manager of the Division of Hydrological and Energy Studies of the Technical Directorate of the Binational. This situation does not prevent the ITAIPU plant from continuing to meet its energy generation commitment.

According to the professional, the drought is largely due to the permanence of the “La Niña” phenomenon, which is characterized by a regime of “poorly distributed rains”, which impacts the inflows to the ITAIPU and is reflected in the low levels of the Paraná River.

He said that, when entering a rain regime below the average for each month, this decrease in inflows to the ITAIPU reservoir begins to mark. Normally, the summer season is the time considered humid, in which the rains recharge the reservoirs upstream of the hydroelectric plant and also provide flow to the tributary rivers to the Paraná upstream of the dam.

“These rains did not occur last summer, so that also contributed to the decrease in the flow of the Paraná River being well marked. The water that reaches the hydroelectric plant comes from two sources, the first, from the reservoirs that are upstream from the plant, and, the second, from the tributary rivers to the Paraná between the last Brazilian plant and the ITAIPU plant ", he clarified. .

"La Niña" will remain in force

Among other points, the engineer Gomes explained that the main function of reservoirs is precisely to accumulate water in wet periods and use it in dry seasons.

"That is what has already been done, nothing more than the last wet period we did not have enough accumulated rains to recharge the reservoirs that are upstream in Brazilian territory, and now the reflection of that in flows is more noticeable tributaries well below the monthly average values that we had in previous years ", he highlighted.

Regarding the production of the hydroelectric plant, the Superintendent of Operation, engineer Hugo Zárate, pointed out that although the plant registers a lower generation compared to last year (the drop oscillates 12%), the generation operations in the plant and the provision of electric power service to buyers (Paraguay and Brazil) is guaranteed.

Eng. Gomes announced that climatologically the "La Niña" condition will continue until the end of the year, that is, there will not be prolonged periods of good intensity rains, according to information from climatic institutions worldwide. This phenomenon is characterized by rains that can become intense, but in a short period, which are not enough to significantly increase the amount of water that would reach the ITAIPU reservoir.

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