China turns on world’s second-biggest hydropower dam

Mansi Khandelwal, INN/New Delhi,

@infodeaofficial

The establishment of the second biggest hydroelectric dam is now officially announced by China last Monday (June,28). The initial two generators of the Baihetan hydropower station are launched in the southwest of the country.

The announcement was made during the celebration of the completion of 100 years of their 1921 founding of their communist party.

Congratulating for Baihetan hydropower station, Chinese president Xi Jinping, tells that this is the major project building in China’s west-east, also he says that it is the biggest and most technically difficult project under construction all over the world. It is also said that the project builders and other party supporters have also done their best to establish this project so as to achieve their carbon neutralization goals and comprehensive green transformation of development.

The plan consists of 954 feet tall (289 m) with 16 generating units each having a capacity of 1 kilowatt, which makes it the second-biggest hydropower station after the Three Gorges dam established in 2003 at the Yangtze, having a total capacity of 22.5 kilowatts of generating capacity.

The Baihetan dam is situated on the Jinsha River a tributary of Yangtze. It is said that this is a part of Chinese efforts for the completion of fossil fuels demands by the establishment of more hydropower plants even when these plants are now not given favor in other countries due to environmental complaints.

As usual ignoring all the criticism by environmentalists, protagonist, and its harsh effect on the environment, the Chinese are building the dams in a greed to reduce coal and oil consumption which is imported for different places.

In an interview with the engineer and chairman of CTGC (China Three Gorges Corporation) the engineer, Chen Hao said “The generator rotor — a core component of the units — weighs 1,955 tonnes, and can spin at 111 revolutions per minute and still remain stable, which ensures the long-term safe operation of the units,”

And the chairman Lei Mingshan said “All the core technologies of the Baihetan hydropower station are independently developed. The operation of the first generating units marks a breakthrough in China’s construction of large-scale hydropower projects,”

According to Xinhua News Agency once ready to move and fully operational, the second-biggest hydropower station is approximated to eliminate 20 million annual coal consumption.

Both the first and the second biggest are the manufacturing of the same company – Three Gorges Corp. (a state-owned investor) world’s biggest investors in wind, solar, and hydro generations.