Working capacity of hydropower in China - 340 000 Megawatt, . We would like to draw your attention to the fact that the development of hydropower in the sky began only in 1990, that is, over 30 years in China have built more than 300 000 Megawatts of hydropower in general.
At the beginning of the development of its hydropower industry, China invited all well-known companies: General Electric, Siemens, Alstom and Andriz Hydro are the leaders of mechanical engineering in the world and in Europe. They were invited to start implementing projects in China. If we look at the example of stations in three gorges, the working capacity of which is 22.5 thousand Megawatts, 12 of 32 hydroelectric units are the projects of those companies. All 20 units were built already in China, at the plant in Harbin and in Changdu, according to the technical and design solutions of the above companies - leaders of mechanical engineering.
Baykhetan Hydropower Project is a 16 GW hydroelectric power plant under construction on the Jinsha River, which is a tributary of the Yangtze River in south-western China. Once completed, it will be the second largest power plant in the world after the Three Gorges Dam.
Scheduled for commissioning in 2022, Baykhetan will be one of the first projects to use a 1000 Megawatt turbine generator. It is expected that the hydropower plant Baykhetan will produce 60 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, compensating for 52 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year.
The history of the hydropower project Baykhetan is one of four Chinese hydropower projects in operation or under development, with installed capacity of more than 10 Gigawatts. Total installed capacity of four projects located on the Jinsha River will make about 46 Gigawatts, and annual generating capacity - 190 terawatt-hours.
Three other mega-hydroelectric projects, besides Baykhetan, are the Three Gorges Dam with capacity of 22.5 Gigawatts (operating) on the Yangtze River, the Hiloud hydroelectric power plant with capacity of 13.86 GW (operating) and the Udonge hydroelectric power plant with capacity of 10.2 GW (under construction) on the Jinsha River. The projects WBaihetan and Udongge are provided under the Chinese Gow West program, which aims to transfer electricity from west to east China. The Baykhetan project is located downstream of the Udongde hydropower project.
The feasibility study of the project was approved by the National Development and Reform Commission of China in 2010. Construction work on the project began in August 2017, and the first turbine unit was installed in January 2019. It is assumed that electricity production will begin by 2022 and will reach full capacity by 2023.
The Baykhetan project includes the construction of a concrete arch dam of double curvature with a maximum height of 289 meters. The height of the dam crest is 834 m and the length of the centerline arc is 709 m. The project will have two underground power plants, one each on the left and right banks of the dam. Each power plant will be equipped with eight Francis turbines with a capacity of 1000 Megawatts, which will be produced in China.
The dam fill level is 825 m and the reservoir capacity will be 20 billion m³. The dam is designed to have an adjustable storage capacity of 10.43 billion cubic meters and a flood protection capacity of 7.5 billion cubic meters. The Baykhetan Dam will have six gates and three spillways. The throughput capacity of the project will be 42,346 m³ / sec.
It is expected that Baykhetan will produce more than 60 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year, equivalent to about two-thirds of Beijing's annual electricity consumption. Launching Bayhetan will reduce the amount of coal burning for heat and light production by nearly 20 million tons per year, and thus improve the environment.
Currently, construction of Baichetan hydroelectric power plant in southwest China is going smoothly as the new rotor for one of the generating sets is installed safely. This is the second such rotor, which is the key component of the generating set that has been installed at the HPP. The first one was assembled on August 18 of this year. The generator rotor weighs over 2000 tons.
At Baichetan HPP 16 hydroelectric units with capacity of 1000 MW each will be installed. Thus, the capacity of Baichetan HPP will be 16 GW,