The Three Gorges Project, the world's largest
hydro-power plant, has generated 200 billion kilowatt-hours of
electricity, officials in charge of the project announced on
Friday.
As of Friday morning, the plant had produced electricity worth
50 billion yuan (US$6.7 billion) since it started operation in
2003, officials with the China Yangtze Three Gorges Project
Corporation (CTGPC) said.
The huge amount of electricity production, equal to the power
generated by 120 million tons of coal, has led to a reduction of
240 million tons of carbon emissions, said Ma Zhenbo, general
manager of the plant operated by the CTGPC.
China has been trying to encourage the use of renewable and
clean energy to curb worsening pollution amid a booming
economy.
The electricity generated by the project, located on the middle
reaches of the Yangtze, the country's longest river, has fueled 15
provinces in central, eastern and southern China, easing a severe
power shortage in the industrial regions.
Launched in 1993 and built at an estimated cost of 180 billion
yuan (US$24 billion), the Three Gorges Project will eventually have
32 generators with a combined generating capacity of 22.4 million
kilowatts.
To date, 18 turbines -- 14 on the northern bank of the gorges
and four on the southern bank -- have been in operation with a
combined capacity of 12.6 million kilowatts, enough to fuel Beijing
on a peak day.
By the end of 2008, a total of 26 turbines on both banks will
have started operation, raising the project's annual electricity
output to 84.7 billion kwh.
The project boasts a 185-meter-high dam that was completed in
early 2006 and a five-tier ship lock. It passed this summer the
test to control possible flooding which in the past claimed many
lives and caused great economic loss.?
(Xinhua News Agency November 3, 2007)
