El Chocón Dam

El Chocón (Spanish: Embalse El Chocón ) is one of five dams on the Rio Limay in the northwestern part of Patagonia ( the Comahue region) in Argentina. The reservoir is located on the border of the provinces of Neuquén and Río Negro. The official name of the dam is Embalse Ezequiel Ramos Mexía ( Ezequiel Ramos- Mexía Reservoir ), but informally it is also named after the settlement, which served as a camp of construction workers in the 1970s and today is called Villa El Chocón. In the village live 957 inhabitants ( 2001).

El Chocón is the largest hydroelectric plant in Patagonia. With it, the drain in the Río Limay up to the Río Negro is monitored and controlled. The water is used for irrigation. El Chocón was built by the state company Hidronor ( Hidroeléctrica Norpatagónica ), went into operation in 1973 and reached its full capacity in 1978. Between 1974 and 1995 2700 gigawatt -hours of electricity were generated on average every year. 1993, it was privatized and transferred the Hidroeléctrica El Chocón SA.

El Chocón is part of a larger hydropower system, which also includes the Cerros Colorados Complex belongs to the Río Neuquén.

Dam

The dam was built of soil and has a spillway concrete. About 13 million cubic meters of material were used. The dam is 2,500 meters long ( 2,270 m are also called ). Its maximum height above the riverbed is 71 m. Other elevation data from different sources are 65, 74 and 77 m, which may apply to other points of reference. 58.4 m are formed by the building of the center.

Reservoir

The reservoir Lake Ezequiel Ramos Mexía has a maximum water surface of 816 square kilometers, an average depth of 24.7 m (the largest is 60 m), and a maximum volume of 20.155 billion cubic meters. The lake is used for sailing, fishing and other forms of recreation recreation.

Hydroelectric power station

The hydropower plant has six vertically mounted Francis turbines with a nominal capacity of 204.5 MW, rotating at 88 revolutions per minute. That adds up to 1227 MW; the total power is given, but usually at 1200 MW. The generator power is 222 MVA and 180 MVA for each generator for the transformers.

Outflow

The Río Limay has twice in a high runoff in spring when the snow melts in the Andes and in the autumn rain. Its average discharge is here at the dam site 722 m³ / s, which is slightly less than the Elbe at its mouth.