New Round of Hydropower Tapping Expected in China's WestChina's vast west areas have been ready to carry out a new round of hydropower tapping and in the coming five years many large and medium-sized hydropower stations will be built with an installed capacity totaling over 10 million kilowatts in those parts of the country.Experts with departments of power generation said that hydropower stations going to be built include Xiaowan hydropower station on Yunnan's Lancang River, Longtan station on Guangxi's Honge and Hongjiadu station on Guizhou's Wujiang. With these are also many others for layered power exploitation on Jinsha, Yalong and Dadu Rivers in Sichuan Province. Take Sichuan Province for example, a total of 103 million kilowatts of hydropower, or one-fourth of the country's, can be exploited along Jinsha, Yalong and Dadu Rivers. On these rivers, several oversized hydropower stations at million-kilowatt level can be built.Typical is Xiluodu station on Jinsha, with an installed capacity of as many as 12.6 million kilowatts expected. China boasts a hydro-energy atop the world, giving a potential near 378 million kilowatts, 70% of which are found in west China. Since China's opening in 1978, many large and medium-sized hydropower stations like Wujiangdu, Er'tan and Tianshengqiao have been built on Wujiang, Yalong and Hongshui Rivers. |
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