Unit Addition Boosts Capacity of China's Three Gorges Project to 14,100 Megawatts

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The sixth 700-megawatt (MW) hydraulic turbine generating unit of the Three Gorges project's Right Bank power station went into commercial operation in central China's Hubei Province in mid-December. The installed capacity of the Three Gorges project now totals 14,100 MW. The unit is No. 20 at the power plant. Brazil's Itaipu power station ranks second in the world in terms of capacity with 12,600 MW.

The Right Bank power station has a planned capacity of 12 sets of 700-MW hydraulic turbine generating units. Unit 20 was manufactured by Alstom France and erected by the No. 4 Engineering Bureau of Sinohydro Corporation. The unit passed its trial operation without incident and went into commercial operation 170 days ahead of schedule. Test results show that the unit is stable in operation, and various technical indicators such as vibration, runout, discharge and temperature, are satisfactory with the design requirement.

Up until December 20, 2007, the accumulated power output of the Three Gorges project exceeded 206 billion kilowatt-hours.

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