Rio Madeira HVDC system

The Rio Madeira HVDC system is a high-voltage direct current transmission system in Brazil, built to export power from new hydro power plants on the Madeira River in the Amazon Basin to the major load centres of southeastern Brazil. The system consists of two converter stations at Porto Velho in the state of Rondônia and Araraquara in São Paulo state, interconnected by two bipolar ±600 kV DC transmission lines with a capacity of 3,150 megawatts (4,220,000 hp) each. In addition to the converters for the two bipoles, the Porto Velho converter station also includes two 400 MW back-to-back converters to supply power to the local 230 kV AC system. Hence the total export capacity of the Porto Velho station is 7100 MW: 6300 MW from the two bipoles and 800 MW from the two back-to-back converters. When Bipole 1 commenced commercial operation in 2014, Rio Madeira became the world’s longest HVDC line, surpassing the Xiangjiaba–Shanghai system in China. According to the energy research organisation Empresa de Pesquisa Energética (EPE),^[1] the length of the line is 2,375 kilometres (1,476 mi).