Construction began Sunday on a large hydroelectric power station on the Lancang River in Yunnan Province, southwest China.
With a designed generating capacity of 4.2 million kw, the Xiaowan Hydroelectric Power Station is expected to cost 22.25 billion yuan (US$2.71 billion).
The project, the second biggest next to that of the Three Gorges power station on the Yangtze River, will be completed by 2012, when all the generating units will be in operation.
The electricity produced by the station will be sent to the coastal province of Guangdong, south China. A dam as high as 292 meters will be built.
Water conservancy experts say the project will help flood control and soil erosion prevention efforts downstream.
More Power Stations
Altogether, China will build eight hydroelectric power stations at the middle and lower reaches of the Lancang River in southwest China, the fifth longest in the country.
The total installed capacity of the power plants will reach 15. 55 million kw, according to a news conference held by China State Power Corporation and Yunnan Provincial Government in the provincial capital of Kunming Friday, January 18.
The eight hydroelectric power stations, with Xiaowan and Nuozhadu as the key, will generate 74.1 billion kilowatt-hours annually.
At present, the Manwan Hydroelectric Power Station, with an installed capacity of 1.25 million kw, has been built. The first generating unit of the 1.35-million-kw Dachaoshan power plant has gone into operation.
The Lancang River originates on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and, known as the Mekong River, runs through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam before it empties into the South China Sea.
China Prepares for Gigantic New Power Station
China is busy preparing for another world-class hydroelectric power station, second in size only to the mammoth Three Gorges Power Project.
The Xiaowan Hydroelectric Power Station is to be built on the middle reaches of the Lancang River, the fifth longest in China.
The major feature of the station will be a concrete hyperbolic arch dam that stands 292 meters high, which is equivalent to the height of a 100-story skyscraper. (In Detail)
(People's Daily January 21, 2002)
