This Day, That Year

Editor’s Note: This year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening-up policy.

On April 3, 1992, the construction plan of the Three Gorges project was passed by the National People’s Congress. It is the world’s largest hydropower project.

Located in Yichang, Hubei province, on the Yangtze River, it is a multifunctional water-control system consisting of a dam 2,309 meters long and 185 meters high, with 32 hydropower turbogenerators, a five-tier ship lock and a shiplift.

It is designed to control floodwaters, generate electricity and help to regulate the river’s shipping traffic.

Construction began in 1994, and the Yangtze River was successfully dammed in 1997, marking the completion of the first stage of the project.

In June 2003, the waterstorage level reached 135 meters, allowing trial operations of two series of fivestage locks to begin. One month later, the dam’s first generator went into opera- tion. In 2010, the water-storage capacity reached 175 meters, its highest designed mark.

Starting from July 2012, the Three Gorges Dam began working at full capacity as the last of its 32 large turbine generators was put into operation, realizing a combined generating capacity of 22.5 million KW. The trial of the shiplift at the dam began in 2016, marking the completion of the project.

Nearly 1.4 million people were relocated to make way for the project.

Last year, the Baihetan hydropower station project started construction on the Jinsha River, an upstream branch of the Yangtze River. It will be the world’s secondlargest hydropower project, and is expected to enter operation by 2022.