While China’s energy aspirations have long been demonstrated by the enormous Three Gorges Dam, the Xiluodu Hydropower Station, another engineering wonder located upstream on the Jinsha River, is poised to revolutionize hydropower. Energy production from 12 trillion liters of water may be something China is thinking about. Rising 285.5 meters above the riverbed and straddling the border between Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, Xiluodu was originally a dam converted into a tourist attraction. The Xiluodu initiative is making China’s energy generation more intelligent and sustainable while also harnessing the power of nature.
China’s energy breakthrough could replace fossil fuels shortly
One of the biggest hydropower successes ever undertaken, the Xiluodu Hydropower Station is notorious for its reservoir capacity of 12.67 billion cubic meters (around 12 trillion liters) and its yearly power generation output of 57.12 billion kWh. The station was built to generate energy as well as to manage flooding, retain sediment, and even enhance navigation. As the second-largest hydroelectric station in China and the third-largest in the world, Xiluodu boasts 18 enormous turbines that can each generate 770,000 kW, making the enormity of the numbers behind this endeavor practically legendary.
An impressive 13,860 MW of installed capacity comes from these turbines. America has seen the arrival of microhydropower, which promises limitless energy using only water. While the microhydropower is impressive, the Xiluodu Hydropower Station is the talk of the town because it can provide millions of families with clean, renewable energy and is crucial to China’s “West-to-East” power transmission strategy. The fact that this plan depends on two high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines—one that stretches 1,680 km to Zhejiang and another that reaches 1,286 km to Guangdong—makes it even more effective.
When combined, they can deliver about 14.4 GW of electricity to China’s economic centers. In addition to ensuring national energy security, this serves to balance the energy imbalance between the resource-rich western areas and the coastal provinces with high demand. The centerpiece of the station is a double-curved arch concrete dam. It is the third tallest in China. A 200-kilometer-long and 700-meter-wide reservoir behind it floods more than 3,000 hectares of land. Even though this amazing innovation costs around $10 billion, it has positive effects on the economy and the environment.
China’s energy innovation will be able to regulate 4.65 billion cubic meters of floods
More important than energy generation is Xiluodu. Major downstream cities, including Yibin, Chongqing, and Luzhou, are more resilient to flooding thanks to their 4.65 billion cubic meter flood control capacity. These cities even had their flood protection standards raised from once-in-20-years to once-in-100-years resilience. With the intensification of climate change, the Xiluodu project is an essential part of the flood management system of the Yangtze River. The initiative will further promote technological innovation. To maintain national stability, it has five enormous floodgates, including the heaviest gate in the world, weighing 1,600 tons, which can release water at about 50 meters per second. Despite being a Chinese success, the Xiluodu project has significant negative effects on the environment and people.
To make room for the reservoir, some 180,000 people, mostly from rural areas, were relocated. Additionally, once the reservoir was filled in 2013, the water level rose to 100 meters in just 51 days, disrupting the ecosystem and causing extremely low water levels in downstream locations like Luzhou. Despite not being as well-known worldwide as the Three Gorges Dam, the Xiluodu Dam is just as important. About a trillion liters of clean, renewable energy are being used at a time to power the second-largest economy in the world, thanks to its enormous scale, strategic location, and multifunctional purpose. With so much hydropower-based renewable energy, China might be concealing the energy equivalent of the Holy Grail.
