This Day, That Year: April 3

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

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 ship lift.

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 water storage level reached 135 meters, allowing trial operations of two series of five-stage locks to begin. One month later, the dam's first generator went into operation. In 2010, the water-storage capacity reached 175 meters, its highest designed mark.

An item from July 21, 2010, in China Daily showed the dam going through its first major flood-control test.

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 kilowatts. The trial of the ship lift 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.

The Baihetan hydropower station project is under construction on the Jinsha River, an upstream branch of the Yangtze. It will be the world's second-largest hydropower project, and is expected to be built by 2022.

China has vowed to raise its installed capacity for hydropower to 380 gigawatts by 2020, as it is a cheaper and cleaner alternative to coal, as part of efforts to phase out polluting fossil fuels.

(China Daily 04/03/2019 page22)