The Three Gorges Hydropower Plant has generated 10 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in the first four months this year.

Li Yong'an, general manager of China Three Gorges Project Corporation, said last Friday the project had generated 58 billion kwh since July 10, 2003, when the first generator started to produce electricity.

Twelve generators with an installed generating capacity of 9.8 million kw have been operating at the plant, which is being built on the middle section of the Yangtze.

The Three Gorges Project, with an estimated cost of 180 billion yuan (approximately US$21.7 billion), will have 26 generators with a combined generating capacity of 18.2 million kw and be able to generate 84.7 billion kwh of hydro-electric power annually when it is completed in 2009.

The project will also restart a new underground power workshop with a planed installed capability of 4.2 kw containing six generating units. The workshop's construction was postponed earlier this year out of environmental concern.

Launched in 1993, the Three Gorges Project is designed to draw power from the Yangtze, China's longest river. The massive project was planned in three stages. Preparations and construction in the first phase were carried out between 1993 and 1997.

So far, an investment of 113.1 billion yuan (US$13.6 billion) has been spent on the project and the planed investment scale can be under control amid escalating prices of building materials, according to the general manager.

(Xinhua News Agency May 4, 2005)