Power Generation
The dam incorporates a hydro-electric generating station, which is situated on the east side of the spillway discharge channel. This uses water from the lake to drive a number of turbine-generators; as first commissioned, three generators were installed, producing a total of 6 megawatts of electricity. The power generated is used for the operation of the lock and spillway machinery, and for the lighting of the locks and the canal villages.
Read more about this topic: Gatun Dam
Famous quotes containing the words power and/or generation:
“Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“What an infernal set of fools those schoolmarms must be! Well, if in order to please men they wish to live on air, let them. The sooner the present generation of women dies out, the better. We have idiots enough in the world now without such women propagating any more.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)