Jirau Energia achieved at the 3,750 MW Jirau Hydropower Plant in Brazil

IHA congratulates Jirau Energia on a landmark achievement: the 3,750 MW Jirau Hydropower Plant on the Madeira River in Rondônia, Brazil, has become the first project in South America to achieve Gold certification under the Hydropower Sustainability Standard. Gold — the highest certification level available — confirms that a project not only meets the minimum ESG performance floor but consistently exceeds it across all applicable assessment topics.

The independent assessment found that Jirau exceeded minimum requirements in every ESG area, with particularly outstanding results in governance and procurement, water quality and sedimentation management, and cultural heritage. These are areas of heightened sensitivity for a large river system in the Amazon basin, where cultural heritage, aquatic biodiversity, and sediment dynamics require careful, sustained management over the full operational lifecycle of a project.

Jirau was also among the recognised projects at the 2025 IHA Blue Planet Prize ceremony in Paris, where it received an award for outstanding achievement — alongside Iceland's Fljótsdalsstöð project. The Jirau plant, one of the largest run-of-river hydropower facilities in the world, has an installed capacity of 3,750 MW and plays a key role in Brazil's predominantly renewable electricity system.

Brazil's leadership in sustainable hydropower — with hydropower accounting for approximately 60% of the country's electricity generation — makes Jirau's Gold certification a milestone with resonance across the wider Latin American sector. IHA encourages all member operators with large operating assets to follow this example and bring their projects through the HSS certification process.