Yangtze to get more hydro-plants
By Wang Ying (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-09-23 08:50

State-owned infrastructure and energy investor, State Development & Investment Corp (SDIC), plans to inject some 140 billion yuan (US$17.3 billion) to build at least six more hydro-power plants on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River in Sichuan Province.

The total installed capacity of the hydro plants, including one the company built in the early 1990s, is expected to reach more than 20 GW (gigawatts), a senior official from the Beijing-based investment company, who declined to be identified, yesterday told China Daily on the sidelines of an energy conference in Beijing.

One of the new hydro-plants, located in the Yalong branch of the Yangtze River, has been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) - the country's top economic policy planner, and is scheduled to generate electricity by 2012, the official yesterday said.

The SDIC official yesterday said the company had not set a timetable for the operation of the remaining plants.

"The government will approve the plants one by one," said the official.

Construction of the new plants will be financed by equity capital and bank loans, the company official said. But he did not elaborate further on the capital structure.

SDIC will set up joint-ventures with local energy companies in Sichuan Province for building these plants, and SDIC will take a controlling stake in the ventures.

The single generator plants will have a capacity of less than 600 MW (megawatts), with supply of the equipment and technology open for tenders from abroad, the official said.

Du Zhigang, a director for corporate development of the State Grid Corp of China yesterday told the energy conference that the grid company will complete a high-voltage transmission line to link SDIC's hydro-plants with the country's power grids by 2011.

In order to clean skies clouded by smog from coal-fired power stations and meet the country's surging demand for power, China is vigorously pushing hydro-power generation in resource rich areas especially in the western region.

"We will push hydro-plant construction," Xu Dingming, head of the energy department under the NDRC yesterday told the energy conference.

China aims to more than double its hydro-power capacity to some 246 GW by 2020, which will account for about 25.9 per cent of the country's total energy consumption, said the NDRC source.

Coal currently fuels 67.7 per cent of China's energy needs.

Zhuang Laiyou, a senior advisor for the China Development Bank, said nuclear and hydro sources have the greatest potential to replace coal in power generation in China.

The country, based on current estimates, has the potential to generate 350-400 GW of hydro-power, the senior advisor said.

Zhuang said the country's limited oil and gas reserves rule out the possibility of massively developing oil and gas-driven power generation, while renewables such as wind and solar power will only serve as a supplementary source for future power generation, due to their high costs.

(China Daily 09/23/2005 page10)

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