Hydropower Project Helps Ease Power Shortage

The Three Gorges Power Plant, the country's largest hydropower project, has generated more than 150 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity since it became operational in 2003, the operating company announced on Sunday.

The electricity generated by the project has fueled 15 provinces in central, eastern and southern China, easing a severe power shortage in their industrial regions, said a statement from the China Three Gorges Project Corporation.

The 22.5-billion-US-dollar project was launched in 1993 in the midsection of the Yangtze River, China's longest. Its 26 turbo-generators are designed to eventually produce 84.7 billion kwhs of electricity a year after its scheduled completion in 2008.

The electricity it produces will be enough to light up Shanghai on a peak day with power to spare, while the 2.3-kilometer-long dam will help to controls annual floods that regularly devastate the country's densely populated farming heartland.

Fourteen of the designed 26 turbines are operating at full capacity and another four, each with an installed capacity of 700,000 kw, will go into operation this year, said the statement.

An earlier report said the Three Gorges and the downstream Gezhouba power plant would generate 78.6 billion kwhs of electricity this year, up 23 percent over the previous year.

The rising water level in the Three Gorges Reservoir and new generators that were to come into operation this year would help meet the target, said Cao Guangjing, deputy general manager of the corporation, which manages the two power plants.

The water level in the Three Gorges Reservoir rose to the 156-meter mark on Oct. 27 last year. At full capacity, the level will rise to 175 meters in 2008.

(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2007)