Itaipu Begins Turning the Paraná into Electricity

On May 5, 1984, the first turbine generator began operating at the Itaipu hydroelectric dam on the Parana River along the border between Brazil and Paraguay. Named after a nearby island, drawing on a Guarani expression meaning sounding stone, the undertaking represented one of the most ambitious engineering projects in South America. The installation of that initial unit marked the transition from a decade of intensive civil construction into an active power-generating complex, built to supply the expanding industrial grids of Brazil while providing Paraguay with an immense energy surplus.

Bilateral planning for the river had taken shape through formal diplomacy during the late 1960s. The foreign ministers of Brazil and Paraguay signed the Iguacu Act on June 22, 1966, formally registering mutual intent to evaluate the shared water resources stretching downstream from the Salto de Sete Quedas. The two countries then signed the Itaipu Treaty on April 26, 1973, which established the legal framework for joint exploitation of the Parana. In May 1974, the binational entity Itaipu was formed to oversee the project, and construction began that year.