China spent 100 billion yuan and took 8 years to build the Wudongde hydropower station.
In our southwest region, there is an abundance of water resources, which is a valuable clean energy. However, for a long time, we have not been able to make full use of this resource due to technical constraints.
But now, that's changing. A dam known as "the smartest in the world" has successfully brought new breakthroughs in the use of hydropower in the southwest.
According to reports, it took us eight years and more than 100 billion yuan to build a giant hydropower station on the Jinsha River. The power generation capacity of this hydropower station is equivalent to that of the two Three Gorges hydropower stations combined.
Have you ever heard of this amazing project?
China has a long history of water resources development and utilization. As early as the reign of King Qin Zhao, Li Bing summed up the experience of his predecessors in water control, and led the people on both sides of the Minjiang River to successfully build Dujiangyan, which fully demonstrated China's excellent water conservancy engineering technology.
In modern times, with the continuous progress of China's engineering technology, water conservancy projects have gradually been put on the agenda.
Therefore, immediately after the founding of the People's Republic of China, experts began preliminary exploration work on the Jinsha River for hydropower stations, with a view to making full use of the hydropower resources here.
In fact, as early as the 50s of the last century, our country has begun preliminary exploration work on the Wudongde hydropower station, which is our protagonist today.
With the continuous advancement of water conservancy and hydropower development and exploration in the Jinsha River Basin, several generations of surveyors in China have spent more than 60 years going deep into the center of the Jinsha River to explore the location suitable for the construction of hydropower stations.
The construction of a hydropower station is a complex overall project, in addition to finding a suitable construction location and construction method, it is also necessary to consider the impact of the construction of the hydropower station on the surrounding environment and people's lives.
As a result, preliminary exploration and planning work for the Udongde hydropower plant continued for decades.
In 2002, the Three Gorges Corporation was authorized by the state to start the pre-feasibility survey and design of the Wudongde Hydropower Station, marking the official inclusion of the project in the planning schedule.
Although the exploration work on paper seems simple, in practice, every step is full of unknowns and risks, especially the complex geological conditions here, which greatly increase the difficulty of exploration.
In particular, at 900 meters near the dam site, there is a Jinpingzi landslide with a scale of more than 600 million cubic meters, which undoubtedly brings great challenges to the project.
The life and death line of the Jinsha River: The stability evaluation of the Jinping Zi landslide determines the survival of the Wudongde Hydropower Station. To this end, the explorers have made great efforts to excavate 130,000 square meters of exploration flat hole, drill out 2After decades of 60,000 meters of geological drilling, it was finally confirmed that the hydropower station could be built.
In 2011, with the approval of the state, the preparatory team of Wudongde Hydropower Station officially began the preparatory work.
On the Jinsha River at the junction of Luquan Yi and Miao Autonomous County in Yunnan Province and Huidong County in Sichuan Province, there is a hydropower dam site.
Despite the many rapids, there are no roads, no water, no electricity and no communication facilities, and the living conditions are very difficult. The preparatory team began to "start from scratch" in this almost blank area, starting from the investigation of the surrounding environment of the dam site, optimizing the design scheme, conducting demonstrations in engineering technology, return on investment, construction period, etc., and comprehensively optimizing the overall layout of the construction.
In order to achieve the subsequent progress of the project, the project team first carried out the infrastructure construction of "water, electricity, roads, telecommunications, and leveling", which took until December 2015 to complete.
At that time, the travel time from Kunming to the construction site was shortened from 7 hours to 5 hours. So far, the Wudongde Hydropower Station has officially been approved to start construction, and the construction project of this world-class giant hydropower station has also entered the substantial construction stage.
Wudongde Hydropower Station: on the Jinsha River"Three Gorges"The Wudongde Hydropower Station, once positioned as the "Three Gorges" on the Jinsha River, proved to be far more difficult to build than the Three Gorges Dam.
The construction of the hydropower station consists of three core projects: the pouring of the dam, the construction of a water diversion power generation system, and the installation of generating units. These three projects are the heart of the dam, and they are also the most difficult and the most difficult.
First of all, what needs to be built is the foundation of the hydropower station - the dam. The dam site of Wudongde Hydropower Station is located on the first step of the lower reaches of the Jinsha River, and the geological conditions of the river valley are complex, and the operation is world-class.
This is the challenge facing the Wudongde hydropower station, and it is also the problem that we need to overcome.
Rephrased: The engineers carefully designed the Wudongde Dam as a double-curved arch dam, which cleverly used the canyon topography and formed an excellent force system. Amazingly, the dam was built in a "tall and thin" form, with a crest elevation of 988 meters and a maximum dam height of 270 meters, but the bottom thickness is only 51 meters, and even the thinnest point is only 1198 meters, which makes the thickness-to-height ratio only 019, thus becoming the thinnest 300-meter-class extra-high arch dam in fact.
The reservoir can hold up to 586.3 billion cubic meters means a lot to us, as it means huge power generation and water reserves. However, for the construction crews, this means that the dam face will be subjected to a huge force of 5.09 million tons, which is extremely difficult and challenging to construct.
How to ensure the stability and safety of the dam is the most important task in dam construction. During dam construction, the temperature control and crack prevention of poured concrete is a worldwide problem.
This problem is further complicated by an environment like Wudongde Gorge, where the average humidity is only 15% throughout the year, but the temperature can reach more than 35 degrees half the time and reach a maximum of more than 40 degrees.
High temperatures can cause cracks in concrete, and even the smallest cracks can pose a threat to the safety of dams. Therefore, how to keep the concrete low in a high temperature environment has become a major challenge.
After a continuous selection of raw materials, the dam builders created a miracle by using low-heat cement concrete for the construction of the Wudongde Dam, which is the first in the history of dam construction in the world.
This effectively prevents the concrete from cracking at high temperatures, ensuring the stability and safety of the dam.
In order to ensure that the temperature of the low-heat cement concrete is suitable and that there are no cracks in the later stage, special raw materials and fine mixing technology were used in the construction process of the Wudongde Dam.
At the same time, the dam builders also achieved precise control of the concrete temperature and intelligent cooling by embedding thermometers and cooling water pipes. Hailed as the "smartest" system in the world, this system showcases China's advanced infrastructure construction technology and "Chinese wisdom".
After more than 3 years of pouring, the Wudongde Dam was completed perfectly in May 2020 and was highly praised by experts. Its concrete performance is excellent, and it is a real "seamless dam", which provides a reliable guarantee for the safety of the dam.
With the completion of the dam pouring, the construction of the hydropower plant's water diversion power generation system has also begun. The construction of the main plant of the Wudongde underground power station was a challenge, the length of which is equivalent to the length of 3 standard football fields and the height of almost 30 floors, which is the largest in the world.
Building such a "hole" on both sides of such a steep canyon is an extremely difficult task, because if something goes wrong, the mountain can collapse due to shaking.
In order to solve this problem, the builders installed a giant anchor net as an "exoskeleton" on the mountain to ensure the stability of the mountain. At the same time, they also sprayed concrete for reinforcement with each completed layer during the excavation process, and set up monitoring instruments to monitor the deformation of the rock.
After the construction of the plant was completed, in December 2019, the lifting of the rotor of the world's heaviest generator began. The rotor is 17 meters in diameter and weighs 2,100 tons, which is equivalent to the weight of 1,400 family cars.
During the lifting process, the extremely high requirements for precision and difficulty are a severe test for the construction personnel, who need to ensure that the rotor and steel blocks fall into the pit precisely to ensure the smooth operation of the hydropower station.
On December 16, the first rotor was successfully hoisted, and the workers rejoiced and began to hoist the other rotors. During the construction process, the builders overcame the difficulties caused by the new crown epidemic.
Finally, on May 28, 2020, the trial operation of the first units was successfully launched. On June 29, 2020, the first batch of units of Wudongde Hydropower Station was officially put into commercial operation, and the turbulent water flow of the Jinsha River was transformed into green energy, lighting up thousands of homes.
Wudongde Hydropower Station, as a key project of the national "West-to-East Power Transmission", has installed 12 sets of 850,000 kilowatt hydro-generator units, with a capacity of 10.2 million kilowatts, ranking fourth in the scale of hydropower stations in China.
When fully operational, the annual power generation will reach 389100 million kWh, enough electricity for Guangzhou for 5 months and Kunming for 8 months.
On the morning of June 16, 2021, all units of Wudongde Hydropower Station were officially put into operation, marking that as the first hydropower station in the Jinsha River Basin, it will form a hydropower station group with a capacity of 38.5 million kilowatts and an annual power generation of 189 billion kilowatt-hours with the other three cascade hydropower stations downstream, which is equivalent to the sum of the two Three Gorges Dams.
There is no doubt that the Wudongde Hydropower Station is a leader in science and technology on the Jinsha River. According to calculations, the green electricity produced by Wudongde Hydropower Station will save 12.2 million tons of standard coal in China every year, and the reduced carbon emissions need us to plant 850,000 hectares of broad-leaved forests can be offset.
In addition, the Wudongde Hydropower Station can also be combined with the Three Gorges Power Station to jointly resist the floods of the Yangtze River and improve China's flood prevention and disaster resistance.
According to the data, the reserved storage capacity of Wudongde Hydropower Station is very large, as high as 24400 million cubic meters, equivalent to the water volume of more than 170 West Lakes. This huge reservoir capacity gives the Wudongde Reservoir a powerful flood control function, which can effectively intercept the flood of the Jinsha River and become an important part of the flood control system in the Yangtze River basin.
When the flood season comes, the Wudongde Reservoir can hold back the flood water and reduce the amount of water entering the Three Gorges Reservoir, thereby reducing the flood threat in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. In addition, the Wudongde Reservoir also cooperates with the three cascade reservoirs downstream to improve the flood control capacity of Chongqing and other places.
More importantly, the construction of the Wudongde Reservoir has had a positive impact on the local environment and people's lives. Although the construction of the dam to store water requires the resettlement of nearby people, the construction of the Wudongde reservoir has also brought new development opportunities and improved living conditions to the local area.
According to the feasibility study report of the hydropower station, the construction of the Wudongde hydropower station needs to be requisitioned 10536 square kilometers of land, including 230,000 immigrants from the reservoir area.
In order to ensure the smooth progress of the resettlement work, the Three Gorges Corporation has built 26 resettlement sites, equipped with a series of public facilities, such as hospitals and schools, and has also built roads, bridges, electricity and other infrastructure, with a view to creating a better living environment for the migrants in the reservoir area.
Through this migration, the residents who originally lived in the deep mountains and adobe houses successfully moved out of the mountains and lived in the ** resettlement site with convenient transportation, education and medical care.
What's more, more than 3,000 poor households have been lifted out of poverty and have lived a more prosperous life.
The Jinsha River, once a rapids and rapids, has become quiet and open due to the impoundment of water in the reservoir. During normal impoundment, a perennial backwater area of 153 kilometers will be formed, 50 dangerous shoals that hinder navigation will be eliminated, the shipping conditions in the reservoir area will be greatly improved, and the surrounding economic and social development will have a positive impact.
During the construction of the hydropower station, the area has increased employment opportunities by an average of 70,000 people per year, and after the hydropower station is completed and put into operation, in addition to providing sufficient electricity, it can also contribute 11.9 billion yuan of industrial added value to the local area every year, so that the local fiscal revenue has increased by 13500 million yuan.
Luquan County, Yunnan Province, where the hydropower station is located, has developed transportation infrastructure through the construction of hydropower stations, and has begun to vigorously develop industries such as tourism, logistics and financial services to promote the development of the local economy.
In August 2022, Wudongde Hydropower Station declared the first tax of 7310 to Chuxiong PrefectureAfter 60,000 yuan, it will officially become the main tax source and an important pillar of fiscal revenue in Chuxiong Prefecture to promote local economic development.
The hydropower station not only effectively solves the contradiction between local people and nature, but also injects vitality into rural revitalization and beautiful rural construction. This hydropower station is not only our rational development of natural resources, but also a vivid practice of the concept of "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets", which is making great contributions to China's goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality.