El Salto Dam (), located on the

Guadalquivir River The Guadalquivir (, also , , ) is the fifth-longest river in the Iberian Peninsula and the second-longest river with its entire length in Spain. The Guadalquivir is the only major navigability, navigable river in Spain. Currently it is navigable ...

in the municipal district of

El Carpio El Carpio is a city located in the province of Córdoba, Spain. According to the 2006 census ( INE), the city has a population of 4,477 inhabitants. History El Carpio was tied to the Kingdom of Castile as early as the 1300s when the Señorio ...

( Province of Córdoba,

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

), comprises a

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, aqua ...

and its corresponding

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...

. Built for storage of water for electricity generation and irrigation, the dam is situated near the 3.3 km mark on the Pedro Abad-Adamuz highway (CO-412). Its

Neo-Mudéjar Neo-Mudéjar is a type of Moorish Revival architecture practised in the Iberian Peninsula and to a far lesser extent in Ibero-America. This architectural movement emerged as a revival of Mudéjar style. It was an architectural trend of the late 19 ...

design is the result of a collaboration between

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Casto Fernández Shaw and

engineers Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while consider ...

Carlos Mendoza and Antonio del Águila. The Madrid-based engineering

consulting firm A consulting firm or simply consultancy is a professional service firm that provides expertise and specialised labour for a fee, through the use of consultants. Consulting firms may have one employee or thousands; they may consult in a broad ra ...

undertook construction of the dam between 1918 and 1922. Since its inception, the dam has proved valuable to the local population for its contribution to the development and economic expansion of the area.

Design

Built on the site of some old

water mills A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of ...

, the dam creates a

grade Grade most commonly refers to: * Grading in education, a measurement of a student's performance by educational assessment (e.g. A, pass, etc.) * A designation for students, classes and curricula indicating the number of the year a student has reach ...

in the

riverbed A streambed or stream bed is the bottom of a stream or river and is confined within a Stream channel, channel or the Bank (geography), banks of the waterway. Usually, the bed does not contain terrestrial (land) vegetation and instead supports d ...

through the use of two

abutments An abutment is the Bridge#Structure types, substructure at the ends of a bridge Span (architecture), span or dam supporting its Bridge#Structure types, superstructure. Single-span bridges have abutments at each end that provide vertical and l ...

, one on each bank of the river, and five interior

buttresses A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act a ...

. The buttresses, which sustain the bridge and the six

sluice gates A sluice ( ) is a water channel containing a sluice gate, a type of lock to manage the water flow and water level. There are various types of sluice gates, including flap sluice gates and fan gates. Different depths are calculated when design s ...

, also hold up the metal structure bearing the machines that operate the gates. The abutment on the right bank forms an arched

portal Portal may refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * ''Portal'' (series), a series of video games developed by Valve ** ''Portal'' (video game), a 2007 video game, the first in the series ** '' Portal 2'', the 2011 sequel ** '' Portal Stori ...

over the roadway and houses the access stairway to the control room, whose crowning octagonal

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Optical microscope#Objective turret (revolver or revolving nose piece), Objective turre ...

once bore a

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

. This dome, the

horseshoe arch The horseshoe arch (; ), also called the Moorish arch and the keyhole arch, is a type of arch in which the circular curve is continued below the horizontal line of its diameter, so that the opening at the bottom of the arch is narrower than the ar ...

and

alfiz The alfiz (, from Andalusi Arabic ''alḥíz'', from Standard Arabic ''alḥáyyiz'', meaning 'the container';Al ...

, the simple and double windows, and the handrail supports all belong to the Neo-Mudéjar style. The entire

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...

structure is covered with a facing of blocks in imitation of stretcher and header bond

masonry Masonry is the craft of building a structure with brick, stone, or similar material, including mortar plastering which are often laid in, bound, and pasted together by mortar (masonry), mortar. The term ''masonry'' can also refer to the buildin ...

. The upper metal structure, a

lattice Lattice may refer to: Arts and design * Latticework, an ornamental criss-crossed framework, an arrangement of crossing laths or other thin strips of material * Lattice (music), an organized grid model of pitch ratios * Lattice (pastry), an or ...

box girder A box girder or tubular girder (or box beam) is a girder that forms an enclosed tube with multiple walls, as opposed to an i-beam, - or H-beam. Originally constructed of wrought iron joined by riveting, they are now made of rolled steel, rolled ...

, initially held a wooden platform that has since been replaced by a grate. The motors that power the gears and chains used to raise the sluice gates are housed here in protective casings. A traveling

bridge crane An overhead crane, commonly called a bridge crane, is a type of Crane (machine), crane found in industrial environments. An overhead crane consists of two parallel Rail profile, rails seated on longitudinal I-beams attached to opposite steel ...

projects from the upstream side of the girder. From within its two-story wooden cabin, the operator is able to stack metal beams in slots parallel to the sluice gates in order to retain the water and allow the gates to be isolated. The crane is also used to lift motor and gear assembly casings. In addition to its carefully designed mechanisms, the dam has an important artistic value and is in a good state of preservation.

El Carpio Hydroelectric Power Station

El Carpio Power Station is situated on the lower side of a

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the Channel (geography), channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erosion, erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank (cut bank, cut bank or river cl ...

of the Guadalquivir, across from the dam. Also built in 1922, the plant uses three

turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced can be used for generating electrical ...

generators to produce electricity. It belongs to

Endesa Endesa, S.A. (, originally an initialism for ''Empresa Nacional de Electricidad, S.A''.) is a Spanish multinational electric utility company, the largest in the country. The firm, a majority-owned subsidiary of the Italian utility company Enel, ...

, Spain's largest

utility company A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and r ...

. As a

run-of-the-river Run-of-river hydroelectricity (ROR) or run-of-the-river hydroelectricity is a type of hydroelectric generation plant whereby little or no water storage is provided. Run-of-the-river power plants may have no water storage at all or a limited amou ...

power plant, which utilizes the natural flow of water, it has practically no water reserve; its generating capacity therefore depends on the condition of the river. Water is drawn from the upstream dam through a tunnel and deposited next to the power station in a small tank capable of holding . From there, it passes through the turbines and returns to the river. The kinetic energy from flowing water is used by the Francis turbines at a flow rate of per machine to generate

mechanical energy In physical sciences, mechanical energy is the sum of macroscopic potential and kinetic energies. The principle of conservation of mechanical energy states that if an isolated system is subject only to conservative forces, then the mechanical ...

. The generators then convert this energy into an

alternating current Alternating current (AC) is an electric current that periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time, in contrast to direct current (DC), which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in w ...

, according to Faraday's Law of Induction, and create an electrical signal which must then coincide with the 50 Hz frequency used by the Spanish

power grid ''Power Grid'' is the English-language version of the second edition of the multiplayer German-style board game ''Funkenschlag'', designed by Friedemann Friese and first released in 2004. ''Power Grid'' was released by Rio Grande Games. I ...

. To reach this frequency, the turbines and in turn the generators must rotate at a speed of 214

rpm Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or r⋅min−1) is a unit of rotational speed (or rotational frequency) for rotating machines. One revolution per minute is equivalent to hertz. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 def ...

. Finally, the

electric tension Voltage, also known as (electrical) potential difference, electric pressure, or electric tension, is the difference in electric potential between two points. In a static electric field, it corresponds to the work needed per unit of charge to ...

must be raised by the plant's

transformer In electrical engineering, a transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple Electrical network, circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces ...

s in order to reduce energy loss during travel along

power lines Electric power transmission is the bulk movement of electrical energy from a generating site, such as a power plant, to an electrical substation. The interconnected lines that facilitate this movement form a ''transmission network''. This is ...

. The power station was, like the dam, built with a view to aesthetics. The exterior features dressed stone blocks, while its rooftop turrets crowned by brick domes have a remarkably

historicist Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying the process or history by which they came about. The term is widely used in philosophy, ant ...

and

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

character. Other details stand out as well, like the elephant head supporting a balcony, which was produced by sculptor . Presented in Paris at the Decorative Arts Exposition of 1921, the building won a gold medal.

References

External links

Endesa: Hydroelectric Station of El Carpio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Salto Dam Dams in Spain Dams completed in 1922 Hydroelectric power stations in Spain Buildings and structures in the Province of Córdoba (Spain) Neo-Mudéjar architecture in Spain Bien de Interés Cultural landmarks in the Province of Córdoba (Spain) Energy infrastructure completed in 1922 1922 establishments in Spain Barrages (dam) Run-of-the-river power stations