China is building the world’s tallest dam. It’s just started storing water
First unit of the Shuangjiangkou power station in Sichuan province is expected to be generating electricity by the end of this year
The Shuangjiangkou hydropower project in southwest China – which will be the world’s tallest dam when completed – began storing water on May 1, its developer said, taking it a step closer to getting up and running.
The 36 billion yuan (US$4.9 billion) project in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture, in Sichuan province, has been under construction for nearly a decade and will be used for power generation and flood control.
It is situated upstream of the Dadu River, which flows from the eastern Tibetan Plateau into the Sichuan Basin.
State-owned Power Construction Corporation of China (PowerChina) is building the project – the dam, a diversion and power generation system, as well as flood discharge structures.
When finished the dam will be 315 metres (1,033 feet) high – about the same height as a skyscraper with more than 100 storeys and 10 metres taller than the current record holder, the Jinping-I dam, also in Sichuan.
PowerChina said in a statement on Tuesday that the water level was at 2,344 metres after the first phase of water storage was completed – about 80 metres higher than the original river level.
The dam’s water storage capacity was said to be at 110 million cubic metres – equivalent to nearly eight times that of West Lake in Hangzhou province.
The company said the progress “laid a solid foundation for the commissioning of the power station”.
Its first unit is expected to be generating electricity by the end of this year.
When it is fully operational, it will have an installed capacity of 2,000 megawatts and the dam will be able to generate more than 7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. That is projected to meet the annual power needs of more than 3 million families.
According to PowerChina, the clean energy generated by the plant could replace 2.96 million tonnes of the nation’s coal consumption and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 7.18 million tonnes.
The hydropower station was approved by the central government in April 2015 and construction started in July that year.
There have been huge engineering hurdles to overcome given the project’s location at an altitude of more than 2,400 metres in an area with complex geological conditions, as well as its technical requirements.
Two senior engineers working on the project detailed “acute technical challenges” such as controlling seepage and drainage, seismic resistance and the construction of the dam itself, in a 2016 paper published in Engineering, a journal of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Cutting-edge tech such as robotics and new 5G communication technology have been used to tackle these challenges. That includes robotic rollers linked to sensors placed around the site that gather data to help improve performance, and the use of drones to detect potential environmental hazards.
Many of the world’s tallest dams are in China. Since the 1950s, the country has built more than 22,000 dams over 15 metres high – about half the world’s total – for flood control, irrigation and, most importantly, hydroelectric power.
Most of China’s highest dams are in the southwest of the country, spanning rivers such as the Lancang, Yangtze and Jinsha.
But while some tout the clean energy credentials of China’s hydropower dams, critics say they have caused immeasurable damage to biodiversity, land erosion, loss of cultural and archaeological sites, and the forced relocation of more than a million people.
There have been some efforts to address environmental concerns on the Shuangjiangkou project, including establishing botanical gardens to transplant and cultivate protected plants displaced in the building of the dam, according to the Engineering paper.