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Longtan Hydropower Plant to Be Built as Planned
With the approval of the State Council, construction of the Longtan hydropower plant will begin on July 1 as scheduled, a spokesman with Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Regional Government announced Wednesday.
On completion in 2009, the Longtan hydropower station will be the second largest in size in China and in Asia after only the Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River, said the spokesman.
Situated on the Hongshui River in Tian'e County, in south China 's Guangxi, the Longtan hydropower project is just one of the tiered hydropower stations planned to explore rich hydro-electric resources on the river, or the upper reaches of the Pearl River.
The hydropower project will mainly consist of a concrete dam, flood discharge works, power generating workshops, as well as navigation facilities.
It will have a combined installed capacity of 4.2 million kw for early-stage development and will be able to generate 15.67 billion kwh of electricity a year on completion.
In accordance with the construction plan, in 2003 water will be diverted from the mainstream of the river to make way for further construction on the Longtan hydropower plant. The first generator at the hydropower project will be able to generate electricity in June 2007.
The project will take nine years to finish and cost 26.4 billion yuan (about 3.18 billion U.S. dollars), of which, 19.76 billion yuan (about 2.38 billion U.S. dollars) will be covered by loans provided by four Chinese banks, including the Bank of China (BOC) and the China Construction Bank.
The Longtan hydropower station will be a key part in the national power grid and play an important role in the country's drive to send electricity from resource-rich western regions to economically developed eastern areas, said Pan Jiazheng, a well- known hydropower expert who is also vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Pan added that the project would promote local economic development and benefit 10 million local residents who live in poverty-hit areas of Guangxi and Guizhou Province along both banks of the Hongshui River.
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