Built between 1974 and 1978, the Stânca Costești Lake was a USSR-Romanian project.
The main goal of building this power station was to protect villages down the Prut river from annual floods.
The 1970 floods in Romania were the worst in modern Romanian history in loss of life.
On 5 November 1978 the Stânca-Costești Hydroelectrical Plant on the Prut was inaugurated.
Romania was represented by Ion Iliescu, the then-Minister of Electric Power Trandafir Cocîrlă, and Chairman Florin Iorgulescu of the Romanian National Council for Water Conservation, while Ivan Bodiul, Minister of Power and Electrification Peter Stepanovich Neporozhny, and Deputy Minister of Land Reclamation and Water Conservation Polat Zade represented the USSR.