China has put the turbo into the energy transition towards renewables and for example, a button: only in 2025 will it install more wind electric capacity that the United States throughout its history. That same milestone but with solar panels He achieved it in 2023. But renewable energies have their problems and one of their critical points is storage: what to do with that surplus on a sunny and/or windy day? The answer normally (if there is no storage system) it’s wasting it.
But China is also a specialist in mega-constructions, due to its colossal size, its blazing speed of construction or even for setting up facilities in places as inhospitable as a solar park on the tibetan plateau. If we combine these two ingredients we have the next great Chinese recipe: a mega hydroelectric plant in the middle of the Tibetan plateau.
The project. Two years ago, the state-owned Yalong River Hydropower Development Company laid the foundation stone for the future Daofu hydropower plant, in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in Sichuan (southwest China). This plant will have a total installed capacity of 2,100 MW and its infrastructure will consist of two reservoirs, a forced conduction system, an underground plant excavated in the rock and a surface substation.
When operational, it will be the highest-altitude pumped hydroelectric power station in the world, surpassing by 700 meters the record-holder, the Yamzho Yumco Lake Pumped Hydroelectric Power Plant in the Xizang Autonomous Region. how to explain Xinhua, China’s official news agency.
Why is it important. Fundamentally, because it solves the main bottleneck of renewables. Daofu is integrated into the Yalong River clean energy ecosystem, with a current operational capacity of 21,000 MW between hydro, solar and wind and with plans to reach 78,000 MW in 2035. Without mass storage, a significant part of that energy would be wasted or destabilize the network.
On the other hand, it shows that it can be built in extreme conditions and its technical advances will serve to accelerate projects with similar characteristics. Finally, and hand in hand with the global energy transition, China takes a giant step in the global race for storage: it closed 2024 with 58 GW of installed pumping capacity, as the absolute world leader, and plans to overcome 120GW in 2030.
Context. The production of renewable energy is becoming increasingly more affordable and simpler thanks to the democratization and evolution of technologies, but the Gordian knot continues to be storage: not wasting energy when more than necessary is produced and, conversely, how to cover demand peaks when there is no wind or sun.
Storage is essential for a real energy transition and few countries are interested in it going well like China, which is the largest consumer of energy of the planet and world leader in renewable electricity production. Batteries are a growing solution, but pumped hydroelectric storage remains the technology with the highest cumulative installed capacity in the world and the most convenient to store large volumes of energy for hours.
In figures. We have already glimpsed some of the overwhelming data of this mega-construction, but it leaves our jaws open:
- 2,100 MW of installed power, distributed among six reversible turbine-generators of 350 MW each. A quick comparison: Daofu represents almost 7% of all the wind power installed in the Spanish statebut concentrated in a single installation.
- 12.6 GWh of daily storage, which according to Xinhua meets the needs of two million households in Sichuan.
- 3 TWh of electricity generation per year, combining charge and discharge cycles.
- Between the upper and lower reservoir there is a difference in level of 760.7 meters, according to the construction company PowerChina Chengdu Engineering Corporation.
- The project investment is 15.1 billion yuan (at current exchange rates, about 1.84 billion euros).
What is it like to build at 4,300 meters. At that altitude, the air available to breathe can cause hypoxia (less oxygen available) and temperatures plummet beyond freezing, a challenge for both working personnel and machinery. On the other hand, building in such remote areas represents a logistical challenge in terms of a lack of infrastructure, something to take into account when moving heavy material such as steel or concrete. Or to manufacture it there.
As Yu Chuntao, project director of the PowerChina project, explains, to Global Times“The design, construction and manufacturing of electrical equipment for the Daofu project is highly exploratory and challenging” and that the advances made there “will greatly boost the design and manufacturing of pumping station equipment in China.”
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Cover | CGTN
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