Three Gorges Project running well for 17 years with remarkable benefits

The China Three Gorges Corporation (CTG), the operator of The Three Gorges Project, gave a briefing recently on the performance of the mega project, noting that it has been running safe and sound for 17 years and bringing remarkable benefits regarding flood control, navigation, power generation and water resource utilization.

As a key part of the flood control system in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Three Gorges Project controls 96 percent of the inflow to Jingjiang, the most dangerous river section during floods, and over two-thirds of the inflow to Wuhan.

Xing Long, Senior Engineer at the Three Gorges Cascade Dispatch and Communication Center, said that the Three Gorges Reservoir has retained an accumulative total of 153.3 billion cubic meters of flood water inflow from 2003 to 2019.

“The project plays an indispensable role in mitigating the floods and in reducing the massive floods in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River,” he added.

According to the estimates of Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Three Gorges Project’s annual anti-flood benefits alone amount to 8.8 billion yuan.

The massive project has also played a significant role in improving navigation conditions and increasing shipping capacity in China’ Yangtze River. Since the Three Gorges Reservoir began storing water in 2003, cargo transportation has significantly increased thanks to the slower and stable water flow in the reservoir. As the average energy consumption of ships reduced to a third of what it was prior to the Three Gorges Project, transportation costs have been greatly lowered.

The Three Gorges Dam commissioned a five-step ship lock in 2003, which has since operated for 17 years consecutively as of June. It has handled 875,300 ships and shipped 1.47 billion tons of freight. Total freight cargo volume for 2019 was 146 million tons, 46 percent above the design capacity and 8 times more than the maximum freight capacity at the river section before the impoundment of Three Gorges Reservoir.

The Three Gorges ship lift launched trial navigation on September 18, 2016. As of June, the ship lift has handled 10,000 ships with 360,000 passengers, cutting down the time it takes to pass the dam to around 40 minutes.

In addition, the Three Gorges Project generates green power, providing valuable benefits to regional development. Since the first power unit was connected to the grid in 2003, the Three Gorges power plant has generated a total of 1.3 trillion kWh of electricity, giving a  boost to China’s high-quality development with a steady stream of green energy.