China’s highest altitude large hydropower plant starts operation

• 2 years ago (2022-03-18)
• David Flin

Asia 848 Hydropower 111

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With the last 500 MW power generation unit officially put into use, a large hydropower plant built at an average altitude of 3000 metres, the highest of its kind in China, has gone into full operation.

The Lianghekou hydropower plant has a planned total installed capacity of 3 GW, and is located on the Yalong River in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze, in southwest China’s Sichuan province. Construction of the $10.5 billion project started in October 2014, and is expected to be fully completed by 2023, according to the Yalong River Hydropower Development Company.

The storage capacity of the reservoir is designed to reach 10.8 billion cubic metres, and the annual power generation volume is expected to exceed 11 TWh.

The Yalong River Hydropower Development Company said that the Lianghekou hydropower plant will help ease imbalanced power generation in Sichuan and promote high-quality development of the Yangtze Economic Belt and the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle.