[Project Introduction] Super Engineering -Wudongde Hydropower Station

The Wudongde Hydropower Station is located on the Jinsha River at the junction of Luquan County, Kunming City, Yunnan Province and Huidong County, Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province. The initial water storage level of Wudongde Reservoir is 975 meters, with a storage of 7.408 billion cubic meters, equivalent to more than 500 West Lakes. Its flood-control capacity is 2.44 billion cubic meters. The dam is capable of seasonal regulation of the water level for flood control. Wudongde accommodates 6 sets of hydroelectric-generators flanking the spillway on each side. As the world's biggest units in operation, each generator has a capacity of 850MW. The dam has an total installed capacity of 10.2 GW, which can generate an average of 38.91 billion kilowatt-hours annually, equivalent to the saving of 12.2 million tons of standard coal or the reduction of 30.5 million tons of carbon dioxide emission.  The Wudongde Hydropower Station has set many world records during its construction, such as the world's largest discharge per unit width at dam crest, and the world's highest underground powerhouse. It has also achieved many "world firsts" such as the total low heat cement-built dam. Multiple world-class challenges have also been tackled, such as temperature control and crack prevention for large-volume concrete, and 800 MPa high-strength steel welding.

The Wudongde Hydropower Station was formally approved to start constructing on December 16, 2015, and the station's first batch of electricity-generation units began generating power on June 29, 2020. As of June 16, 2021, Wudongde has produced and supplied more than 24 billion kilowatt-hours of clean hydropower to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area within one year. Assuming that the average annual electricity consumption per household is 1,000 kilowatt-hours, it has met 24 million Households' demand for electricity.