HVDC Itaipu

The HVDC Itaipu is a High Voltage Direct Current overhead line transmission system in Brazil from the Itaipu hydroelectric power plant to the region of São Paulo. The project consists of two ±600 kV bipoles, each with a rated power of 3150 MW, which transmit power generated at 50 Hz from the Paraguay side of the Itaipu Dam (near Foz do Iguaçu in Paraná) to the Ibiúna converter station near São Roque, São Paulo. The system was put in service in several steps between 1984 and 1987, and remains among the most important HVDC installations in the world.

When the first bipole was completed in 1985, it became the world's largest HVDC system by both power transmission capacity and voltage, titles which it would hold for 25 years until the completion, in 2010, of the ±800 kV, 6400 MW HVDC link from Xiangjiaba Dam to Shanghai in China. It also contained important innovations in real-time control systems, being one of the first HVDC schemes to use digital control equipment using microprocessors. Nevertheless it suffered reliability problems in its first few years of operation, with numerous converter transformer failures and one serious converter fire, although reliability is now reported to be much improved.