Power from Three Gorges to be Competitive: Manager

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, November 06, 2002

Power from Three Gorges to be Competitive: Manager

Hydro-electricity generated by the Three Gorges hydro-power project on the Yangtze River, China's longest, will be competitively priced, an official in charge of the project said Tuesday.

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Hydro-electricity generated by the Three Gorges hydro-power project on the Yangtze River, China's longest, will be competitively priced, an official in charge of the project said Tuesday.

Li Yong'an, deputy general manager of the China Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Development Corp., said he was confident that the price of power generated by the project would be attractive to consumers.

Four of its 26 generating units are expected to produce a total of 5.5 billion kw/hours next year following the planned damming on Wednesday of the diversion canal.

Some small hydro-power plants used to find it hard to compete with coal-fired thermal power plants although hydro-power was clean and cheaper due to local protectionism.

With the ongoing reforms in the energy sector, "I'm confident we can sell the power we generate," said Li.

The delivery price of hydro-power from Three Gorges dam for the national grid, he noted, had been set at 0.25 yuan (3.04 US cents)per kw/hour, compared with the national average of 0.29 yuan (3.5 US cents).

Currently, the average price of electricity in Shanghai is 0.38 yuan (4.6 US cents) and 0.35 yuan (4.2 US cents) for the whole east China region.

China has launched plans to phase out small coal-fired thermal power plants in an effort to reduce air pollution and encourage the use of cleaner energy such as hydro-electricity.

Construction on the Three Gorges Project, which began in 1993, is expected to be completed in 2009, when 26 power-generating units with a combined capacity of 20.915 million kilowatts will go into operation.

It will generate an annual output of more than 100 billion kilowatts/hours of electricity in 2009.

The hydro-power will then be transmitted to Shanghai and other areas in central, south and east China.

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