The water level in the Three Gorges reservoir reached the 156-meter mark at 9:50 a.m. on Friday, a rise of 20 meters since September 20, when this phase of the water storage plan went into operation.

"The Three Gorges project has achieved the second phase of the water storage plan," announced Li Yong'an, general manager of China Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Development Corporation (CTGC).

At 156 meters, the Three Gorges Project is now fully functional in terms of flood-control, power generation and navigation control, said Li.

Figures from the CTGC Cascaded Dispatch Center suggest that Yangtze River water is entering the reservoir at 15,000 cubic meters per second. All 14 of the 700,000-kw generator units powered by water discharge are operating at full capacity.

The reservoir has stored some 10.5 billion cubic meters of water. Data retrieved from 7,000 monitoring devices planted in the Three Gorges Dam indicate the gigantic concrete dam is stable under the current water pressure.

Launched in 1993, construction of the gigantic concrete structure of the Three Gorges dam was completed and began to hold water in May this year. Prior to that, the reservoir's temporary cofferdams held water at a depth of around 135 to 139 meters.

The water level in the reservoir will eventually reach 175 meters in 2009, when the Three Gorges project is finally completed.

"The water storage plan was fulfilled a year earlier than previously planned, which means the project generates 7.85 billion kw/hour more electricity to 15 provinces and municipalities along the river than planned," said the manager.

The generator units generated power at a rate of 550,000 kw per hour since they were commissioned in July 2003. With the generators running at full capacity, each generator's power generation is enough for a city with a population of one million.

The Three Gorges Hydropower Plant will generate 53.1 billion kw/hour of electricity this year.

By lifting the water level to 156 meters, a 570 km-long navigation route to the upper-stream of the Three Gorges has been optimized, allowing ships with a loading capacity of over 10,000 tons to travel from the river mouth in Shanghai on China's eastern coast to landlocked Chongqing Municipality in west China.

Meanwhile, the reservoir's 11 billion cubic meters of flood-control capacity will protect people living on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River from major flood disasters previously experienced once every 100 years.