Hydropower output of the Three Gorges Hydropower Plant (TGHP) has increased remarkably with a rising volume of water onrushing into the upper reaches of the Yangtze River during the flood season, and its average daily generated electricity exceeds 200 million kilowatt-hours. At 8:00 a.m. Sunday, or July 29, the flow of water into the Three Gorges Reservoir hit 34,500 cubic meters per second, and the power generating capacity reached 9.7 million kilowatts.
After the Yangtze entered the flood season in mid June, continuous, sustained rainfall in the Sichuan basin, the municipality of Chongqing and the Wujiang River Valley on the upper reaches caused the continuous, sustained rise in the inflow volume of the Gorges Reservoir and led to three fairly big floods around June 19, July 6 and July 18, with a maximum flow of up to 44,000 cubic meters per second.
It is said that the world's largest water turbo-generating units with a rated power of 700,000 kilowatts have been installed in the TGHP power plant, with the average flow rate of each unit reaching about 900 cubic meters per second. So they can stand the Yangtze’s flood discharge capacity of some 14,400 cubic meters per second.
The huge floodwater release of the Gorges reservoir makes it possible for the power units to generate electricity at a full load. A couple of experiments conducted when the level of water stored hit 156 meters in October 2006 have proved these generating units at the Three Georges stable with their long-term operation under the full capacity of 756,000 kilowatts, noted a leading official of the Three Gorges cascade control center. After the flood season started this summer, the horse power of the Three Gorges generating units kept running at a high level. On July 17, the generated capacity of the TGHP power plant hit 10.57 million kilowatts, and generated 2.5 billion kilowatt-hours for that day.
By People's Daily Online
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