Guri Reservoir

The reservoir of Guri is the largest reservoir in Venezuela and by extension and volume is the second largest lake body in the country, second only to Lake Maracaibo. The reservoir or Lake Guri is located in the state of Bolívar. Formed and delimited by the dam of Guri, where the Simón Bolívar Hydroelectric Plant is located.

The reservoir, Lake Guri, owes its origin to the construction on the Caroni River of the Guri Dam. The history of the Guri begins with the National Electrification Plan of 1947, which began to be elaborated when Rómulo Betancourt was president of the Revolutionary Government Junta and ended during the government of Rómulo Gallegos (first Venezuelan President elected by universal and direct vote), in what is known as the Adeco Triennium. The works began in 1963, with the company (EDELCA) Electrificación del Caroní (now integrated in Corpoelec) subsidiary of the Corporación Venezolana de Guayana (CVG) responsible for its execution. It began to operate partially in 1968 and the works were completed in 1976.

This hydroelectric power plant is the second largest in America, and may be considered the first among those located in a single country, since Itaipu is located between Brazil and Paraguay. The first power plant, with ten generation units and a total installed capacity of 2065 MW, began to operate commercially in 1978. In 1985 a second power plant was built to accommodate another ten generation units of 730 MW each. With this, the total capacity of the plant rose to 10,000 MW. The installation has three high voltage substations operating at 800 kV, 400 kV and 230 kV, all of them with switch and half configuration. The power plant supplies the Venezuelan electricity market with an average of 45,000 GWh of energy.

The Simón Bolívar Hydroelectric Plant, also called the Guri Dam, and formerly known as the Raúl Leoni Hydroelectric Power Plant (from 1974 to 2006, when it was renamed by presidential decree) is located in the Bolívar State, in the Necuima Canyon, 100 kilometers upstream of the mouth of the Caroni River in the Orinoco

The energy produced by the dam is consumed by a large part of the country, including feeding part of the city of Caracas, and a fraction of that energy is sold to Brazil through the Guri-Boa Vista line (Roraima state).