Brazil authorities define water storage, flow standards at Belo Monte

Brazil's national water agency has defined flow standards for reservoir at the Belo Monte hydro plant on the Xingu river, Pará state.

Standards stipulate that water levels at the plant's reservoir should be 97m with a volume of 2,510hm3, state news agency Portal Brasil said in a report.

The maximum amount of water flow from the plant's turbines is 13,900m3/s with a complementary water flow of 2,277m3/s.

The minimum flow for spillways is 62,000m3/s.

Under the resolution, the plant's operators are obligated to provide an uninterrupted supply of water to the city of Altamira, where the project is located, maintain current sailing conditions, protect nearby urban areas from the flooding of the river and tributaries and remove all vegetation at the site of the Belo Monte reservoir.

The plant is scheduled to begin operating from its first generating unit in February next year. It is expected to reach its full 11.2GW generation capacity by 2018.