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Massive 15-year Hydropower Programme Planned
China plans to double its hydropower installed capacity during the next 15 years, from 75 million kilowatts in 2000 to 150 million kilowatts by 2015.
The State Power Corp of China (SP), the nation's leading power producer, is determined to accelerate efforts to tap China's abundant hydropower resources.
The move will lay a sound foundation for the formation of a nationwide grid and for transmitting more electricity from West to East China, said Zhou Dabing, vice-president of the corporation.
According to Zhou, the completion of the giant Three Gorges power station, scheduled for 2009, will provide an incentive for the connection of the Central China grid and the East China grid to form a larger central grid. Meanwhile, a larger northern grid and southern grid will also be formed. China has a dozen separate regional or provincial grids.
The three proposed large grids will serve as passageways for the transmission of electrical power from the west to the east, Zhou said.
China is ready to build a series of large hydropower projects along the three electricity-transmission pathways, he said.
In addition to the Three Gorges project, China will continue to exploit hydropower resources in the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River to form the country's largest hydropower production base.
The Shuibuya hydropower station on the Qingjiang River, a tributary of the Yangtze River in Central China's Hubei Province, is to be constructed in the near future.
Two other hydropower projects on the Yangtze River, Xiangjiaba and Xiluodu, are also scheduled to be built after 2003 when the first units of Three Gorges power plant begins to generate electricity.
These projects will be capable of providing abundant electricity to economically developed East China, Zhou noted.
SP will co-operate with local governments to speed up the exploitation of hydropower resources in Southwest China's Yunnan and Guizhou provinces and in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Plentiful hydropower resources are available because of several roaring streams, including the Lancang River, the Wujiang River (a branch of the Yangtze River), and the Hongshui River (the upper stream of the Pearl River).
SP's key projects in the short term include the Longtan project on the Hongshui River in Guangxi, the Xiaowan project on the Lancang River in Yunnan, and the Hongjiadu project on the Wujiang River in Guizhou.
Thanks to the projects, Southwest China will have a stronger ability to electrify booming Guangdong.
SP is considering setting up several new hydropower stations on the upper Yellow River. The corporation is ready to begin construction of the Gongboxia station and to launch a pre-feasibility study of the Laxiwa station.
The two projects will promote the future integration of the Northwest China grid and the North China grid. The areas' hydropower and the thermal power capabilities are considered complementary.
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