Khoda Afarin Dam
Khoda Afarin Dam is an earth-fill embankment dam on the Aras River straddling the international border between Iran and Azerbaijan. It is located west of Khomarlu in East Azerbaijan Province, Iran and southwest of Soltanlı in Jabrayil District, Azerbaijan. Armenian de facto protectorate Republic of Artsakh occupied the area in 1993, during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, but on 18 October 2020, the Azerbaijani forces retook control of the dam during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It is located upstream of the Khudafarin Bridges.
The purpose of the dam is hydroelectric power generation and irrigation. It was conceived as a joint project with the Soviet Union and both sides reached an agreement in October 1977. Designs were finalized in 1982, revised in the early 1990s and construction began in 1999.
The dam began to impound water in 2008. It was inaugurated in 2010. The irrigation works are still underway. During construction, several Bronze Age sites were discovered, including the grave of a Saka-Scythian warrior. The reservoir filling, or impoundment, was delayed in 2008 to accommodate archeological excavations. The dam's power plant has an installed capacity of and is designed to irrigate.
On 19 May 2024, the Khoda Afarin hydroelectric complex was commissioned during the inauguration of the Giz Galasi hydroelectric complex, attended by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. Later that day Raisi, his Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other high-ranking Iranian officials died in a helicopter crash on their way to Tabriz. The Khoda Afarin Reservoir was reported to hold 503 million m3 of water, at 40% of its total capacity. Both stations are expected to produce 368 million kWh annually.