Mega hydropower project in SW China will be fully operational in July

KUNMING -- The last four electricity-generation units of the Wudongde Hydropower Station, which will be China's fourth-largest and the world's seventh-largest hydropower project upon completion, have entered the final assembly stage and are scheduled to be fully operational by July 1.

With construction beginning in December 2015, the station's first batch of electricity-generation units began generating power in June 2020. A total of eight units have now been put into operation. The station's total installed capacity is 10.2 million kilowatts.

"The key performance indicators have reached or exceeded the national standards since the units were put into operation," said Wang Jintao, head of the Wudongde power plant under the China Three Gorges Corporation.

Wang added that as of midnight Sunday, the station has generated 20.2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, which can replace about 6.27 million tons of standard coal and reduce carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide emissions by approximately 15.68 million tons and 53,000 tons, respectively.

Spanning the Jinsha River in the upper stretches of the Yangtze River, the station is a major hydropower project promoting the high-quality development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.