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Aswan High Dam

Hydroelectric Facility

The rock-fill dam on the Nile in southern Egypt, 111 meters high, 3,830 meters long and 980 meters wide at its base, whose reservoir forms Lake Nasser. Its powerhouse holds twelve Francis turbines with an installed capacity of 2,100 megawatts, and the dam regulates the Nile flood, stores irrigation water and generates power. Sources disagree on its completion date, between the end of construction in 1968 and the formal dedication in 1971.

Facts
Disputed
Commissioned Year
1968 1
The cited engineering profile dates construction 1960 to 1968; many references instead give completion as 1970 and the formal dedication as January 1971. What counts as completion is the open question recorded for this entry.
Facility Type
Hydroelectric dam 1
Location
Aswan, southern Egypt 1
Capacity (MW)
2100 1
Classification
Status
Operational 1
Connections

Associated With

Source Power Technology

Open Questions

Source Power Technology

Uses Source

Source Power Technology
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Sources
1. Power Technology
GlobalData
  • Projects, Aswan High Dam
    Aswan High Dam is a rock-fill dam located at the northern border between Egypt and Sudan.
  • Projects, Aswan High Dam, details
    It also has 12 Francis turbines, with an installed capacity of 2,100MW
  • Operating status, entity description
    the dam regulates the Nile flood, stores irrigation water and generates power.
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Open Questions (1 open question)
When was the Aswan High Dam completed?

Reference works disagree by three years: the cited engineering profile states construction ran 1960 to 1968, while many standard references give completion as 1970 and the formal dedication as January 1971. The disagreement is definitional, whether completion means the end of construction, the last generator entering service, or the dedication, and the atlas cannot settle a definitional dispute by picking a favorite.

What would resolve this An authoritative engineering history of the dam, or the Egyptian ministry record, stating which event each date names: end of rock-fill construction 1968, final turbine commissioning 1970, formal dedication January 1971. Encyclopaedia Britannica likely settles the framing but is bot-blocked; the fetch is queued for the owner (this file, part B).
Engineering historyPower Technology
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