POWER July 2022 - 18

PLANT OF THE YEAR
Wudongde Project Takes
Hydro to New Heights
Courtesy: Voith Hydro
A multi-year, multibillion-dollar undertaking on China's Jinsha River has achieved
several " firsts " for the hydropower sector, earning POWER's highest honor thanks
to its development, design, and importance to the power generation industry. It also
is a model in China's push for more clean and sustainable energy.
Darrell Proctor
C
hina already was the global leader
in hydropower generation before
Xi Jinping, the country's president,
in 2020 announced a plan for the
world's most populous country to become
carbon neutral by 2060. That strategy,
backed by government policies in
support of renewable energy as part of
the overall plan to increase the electricity
supply for China's nearly 1.5 billion
people, again put the spotlight on the
country's massive hydropower projects.
China has more than quadrupled its hydroelectric
power generation capacity
since 2000; according to Global Data,
a UK-based data analytics and consulting
group, the country's cumulative installed
capacity of its hydropower plants
was just shy of 380 GW as of year-end
2021, growing at a rate of about 2.6%
year-over-year.
That total includes the Wudongde Hy1.
A ceremony attended by project officials
and construction staff marked the installation
of the first turbine, manufactured by
Voith, on the left bank of the Wudongde
project. The hydropower plant has 12 turbines,
each with 850 MW of generation capacity.
Courtesy: Voith Hydro
18
dropower Station, considered a major
project in China's " West-to-East " power
transmission program. That transmission
scheme, designed to move surplus
electricity from western China to
the more densely populated eastern
part of the country, primarily is exploiting
abundant hydropower resources in
southwest China's Guizhou, Yunnan,
and Sichuan provinces. The power is being
moved eastward to major population
and business centers including Shanghai
and Beijing.
Wudongde, built for an estimated cost
of about $18 billion and owned by China
Three Gorges Corp. (CTG), a Chinese
state-owned power company, is notable
for several reasons. It's the first (by location)
of a series of four cascade hydropower
stations in the lower reaches of
the Jinsha River (the Chinese name for
the upper reaches of the larger Yangtze
River), and with 10.2 GW of installed
capacity, it is the fourth-largest hydroelectric
project in China and the seventhlargest
in the world.
www.powermag.com
The cascade project includes
Wudongde, along with Baihetan, a 16GW
project that could be commissioned
later this year. The other dams in the
cascade are Xiluodu, a nearly 14-GW
dam that has operated since 2013; and
Xiangjiaba, a 6.4-GW power station that
came online in 2014.
The Wudongde station, which entered
full commercial operation in summer
2021, about a year after its first unit began
producing power, straddles Luquan
County in Yunnan Province, and Huidong
County in Sichuan Province. It features
twelve 850-MW units, with six supplied
by Voith, and six supplied by GE Renewable
Energy. The project, which took
about five-and-a-half years to build, also
includes structures for water retaining,
water releasing, and water diversion,
along with providing power generation.
At the time when Wudongde was
put into operation last year, the project's
850-MW Francis-type turbines were the
largest single units in use in a fully operating
hydro plant worldwide, according
to Voith Hydro. Stephen Lewis, president
and CEO for Voith Hydro for the APAC
(Asia-Pacific) Region, told POWER, " As
one of the major partners, Voith Hydro
supplied six Francis turbine generating
units, each rated at 850 MW, for the
left bank (Figure 1) of the plant. " Lewis
POWER | July 2022
http://www.powermag.com
POWER July 2022

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