The Las Vacas Dam ( es, Planta Hidroeléctrica Río Las Vacas) is a

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...

gravity dam A gravity dam is a dam constructed from concrete or stone masonry and designed to hold back water by using only the weight of the material and its resistance against the foundation to oppose the horizontal pressure of water pushing against it. ...

and

power plant A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many pow ...

spanning the Las Vacas River near the village of San Antonio Las Flores in the municipality

Chinautla Chinautla () is a city and municipality in the Guatemala department of Guatemala. The city has a population of 104,972 (2018 census) making it the fourteenth largest city in the country and the seventh largest in the Guatemala Department. Admini ...

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

. The hydroelectric power plant is designed as a

peaking plant Peaking power plants, also known as peaker plants, and occasionally just "peakers", are power plants that generally run only when there is a high demand, known as peak demand, for electricity. Because they supply power only occasionally, the power ...

and the water stored in its 258,969 m³ reservoir is used to generate electricity during hours of

peak demand Peak demand on an electrical grid is simply the highest electrical power demand that has occurred over a specified time period (Gönen 2008). Peak demand is typically characterized as annual, daily or seasonal and has the unit of power. Peak dem ...

. It has 5

Pelton turbine The Pelton wheel or Pelton Turbine is an impulse-type water turbine invented by American inventor Lester Allan Pelton in the 1870s. The Pelton wheel extracts energy from the impulse of moving water, as opposed to water's dead weight like the trad ...

s with a total installed capacity of 45

MWe The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Watt ...

which generate an average of 120

GWh A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...

of electricity per year.: The plant includes facilities for collecting and recycling plastic waste material found in the reservoir. The Las Vacas project was built by a conglomerate of 4 private sector companies: Cementos Progreso, Fabrigas, Comegsa, and Iberdrola, which are partners in Hidroeléctrica Río Las Vacas, S.A.

References

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External links

Official website
Hydroelectric power stations in Guatemala Energy infrastructure completed in 2003 Dams completed in 2002 Dams in Guatemala 2002 establishments in Guatemala

See also

References

External links