Cerrón Grande Dam

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Hidroeléctrica Cerrón Grande is a hydroelectric power plant in the basin of the Río Lempa in El Salvador. Operator is the Ejecutiva Hidroeléctrica del Río Lempa.

Description

The water reservoir ( Embalse Cerrón Grande), also known as Suchitlán lake lies about 70 kilometers northeast of the capital San Salvador in the department of Chalatenango and covers an area of ​​approximately 135 km ² and holds 218 million cubic meters of water. It is the largest pent-up waters in El Salvador.

The concrete dam with a dam height of 90 meters and a length of 800 m was completed in 1976. The hydropower plant was initially equipped with two Francis turbines with a capacity of 67.5 MW. In the years 2003 to 2007, electrical equipment, transformers and turbines were renewed and replaced by more powerful generators. The installed capacity is 170 MW and produces about 488 GWh of annual electrical energy.