An aerial view of Baihetan Hydropower Station, the world’s second-largest in terms of installed capacity. Its first batch of generating units started operation yesterday morning. Xinhua
President Xi Jinping yesterday sent a congratulatory letter on the operation of the first batch of generating units at Baihetan Hydropower Station, the world’s second-largest in terms of installed capacity.
As a major project in China’s west-east power transmission program, the station is the world’s largest and most technically difficult hydropower project under construction, Xi said in his letter.
The generating units, each with a capacity of 1 million kilowatts, the largest single-unit capacity in the world, mark a major breakthrough in China’s high-end equipment manufacturing, he said.
He stressed the project’s importance in transferring power from the western part of China to the eastern region.
He also highlighted the station’s role in helping the country achieve its targets for peak carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality.
The dam, erected on the Jinsha River and on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, straddles the southwestern provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan. It is expected to be part of the country’s plan to peak carbon emissions and become carbon neutral in the coming decades, according to specialists.
The megaproject has a capacity of 16 million kilowatts and could generate more than 62 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year.
Along with other power stations nearby, it helps to form the world’s largest new-energy corridor.
Zhou Mengxia, deputy director of the Technology Administration Office of Baihetan Engineering & Construction Department, said the hydropower that Baihetan provides will reduce the annual consumption of standard coal by 19.68 million tons and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 51.6 million tons per year.
China aims to peak emissions by 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060.
In terms of installed capacity, the dam is only second to the iconic Three Gorges Dam in Central China’s Hubei Province, and is said to be the “smartest” in the world, thanks to technologies that enable precise artificial intelligence control on cement mixing, pouring and cooling.
Tan Yaosheng, an engineer of the dam project, said the technologies applied allow the dam to recycle water throughout the entire operation process, and costs can be reduced in that way, as well as pollution of the rivers and lakes due to a decreased volume of wastewater.
Almost 8 million metric tons of concrete was used to finish the dam, which is 289 meters high, according to China Three Gorges Corp., the builder.
Aside from generating electricity, the station will also help prevent floods, control flows of sediment and facilitate shipping.
Once it is in full operation in July next year, the daily output of the station is expected to be sufficient to meet the annual household power consumption of half a million people.
Generating that much power every day over the course of a year would take almost 20 million tons of standard coal, China Central Television has reported.
China consumed 4.98 billion tons of standard coal last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
China Three Gorges Corp. said Baihetan has a more extensive network of underground tunnels than any other hydropower station. They run for a total length of 217 kilometers — 1.7 times the distance from Beijing to Tianjin.