Shuangjiangkou brings three generating units online in China

On the upper Dadu River in Sichuan, the third generating unit at Shuangjiangkou Hydropower Station has started operating. That puts three of the four planned generating units online in the project’s first phase, and China Energy Investment Corp says the station has already delivered about 500 million kWh of electricity to help meet summer demand in Sichuan and the Chengdu-Chongqing region.

The scale is visible before the electricity reaches the grid. Shuangjiangkou’s dam rises 315 meters, making it the world’s tallest, while the plant is designed for 2 gigawatts of capacity. Its four turbines are each rated at 500 megawatts. The reservoir can hold 2.9 billion cubic meters of water, giving operators a large store to release according to demand and seasonal conditions.

That storage is the part that reaches beyond the dam itself. Xiamen University energy economist Lin Boqiang told the Global Times that reservoir hydropower flexibility is becoming more important as wind and solar capacity expands. Water can be managed as renewable output changes, helping the regional electricity system respond to fluctuations without treating each hour of wind or sunshine as fixed.

Once the final generating unit starts, the station should produce about 7.7 billion kWh each year. It is also expected to raise annual generation at downstream hydropower stations by around 6.6 billion kWh. Those figures remain plans for full operation, not output already achieved: three units are running, while the source does not give a start date for the fourth.

And so, concretely: Sichuan gains electricity from a plant already producing power, plus a reservoir designed to help manage peaks and changing renewable output. The construction was carried out at high altitude, where difficult geology, low temperatures and a short effective building season challenged engineers. The project arrives as China expands hydropower: the National Energy Administration reported 6.03 gigawatts added in the first half of the year, bringing installed hydropower capacity to 454 gigawatts by the end of June.