Unit 7 of the 16 GW Baihetan Hydropower Station was put into commercial operation on Aug. 2 after passing the 72-hour trial operation.
This means that 10 of the 16 power-generating units at the project are now in operation.
This project is located on the Jinsha River, the upper section of the Yangtze River. The project is located in a transitional region that stretches from the Tibetan Plateau and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau to the Sichuan Basin, an area with complex geological conditions that have caused hundreds of landslides.
The powerhouse has produced 34.5 billion kWh of electricity to date. The clean energy it has generated is equivalent to saving 19.63 million tonnes of coal and reducing 51.6 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions.
When fully commissioned, the project will generate an average of more than 62.4 billion kWh of electricity annually. Reports last year gave a full completion date of July 2022. No update on timeline was provided with this most recent announcement.
Baihetan, built by the China Three Gorges Corporation, is said to be one of China’s largest and most challenging engineering projects. According to CTGC, the project’s main structures consist of the dam, flood discharge structures, water diversion and power generation facilities. The dam is a double-curvature arch dam with a maximum height of 277 m, a crest elevation of 827 m, a crest width of 13 m and a maximum bottom width of 72 m.
