On the morning of December 19, with the successful grid connection of the last generating unit of the Yinjiang Hydropower Station in Panzhihua, Sichuan, the province’s hydropower installed capacity exceeded 100 million kilowatts, making it the first province in China to reach this milestone.
What does a capacity of 100 million kilowatts mean? It accounts for about a quarter of the country’s total hydropower installed capacity, equivalent to approximately 4.4 Three Gorges Dams.
The Yinjiang Hydropower Station (photographed in June 2025, photo provided by the interviewee unit) Sichuan is known as the “Province of a Thousand Rivers”. In particular, the Jinsha River with a natural drop of 5,100 meters, the Yalong River with 3,830 meters, and the Dadu River with 4,175 meters are rich in hydropower resources. Sichuan’s hydropower development history stretches back 100 years, dating to the Dongwo Hydropower Station built on the Longxi River in Luzhou in 1925, which had an installed capacity of 140 kilowatts.
Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Sichuan’s hydropower development has made breakthroughs on multiple fronts. Especially since the new era, super projects such as the Baihetan, Wudongde and Lianghekou Hydropower Stations have been completed and put into operation. Among them, the Baihetan Hydropower Station is equipped with the world’s most powerful million-kilowatt hydro-generating units, marking a major breakthrough in China’s high-end equipment manufacturing.
Today, among the world’s top 12 largest hydropower stations, China is home to 5, 4 of which are located on the Jinsha River alone. There are also several “world’s top hydropower stations” on the Yalong River and Dadu River. As a base for the “West-East Power Transmission” project, about one-third of Sichuan’s annual power generation is transmitted outside the province. Hu Zhaohui, spokesperson of the State Grid Sichuan Electric Power Company, stated that since Sichuan Power Grid started transmitting electricity to other provinces in 1998, it has cumulatively delivered over 1.9 trillion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity to central, eastern and other regions of China. This volume is equivalent to the total annual electricity consumption of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces combined.
The fully grid-connected Yinjiang Hydropower Station is the last stage of the “one reservoir and ten cascades” hydropower development project on the middle reaches of the Jinsha River, with a total installed capacity of 390,000 kilowatts. “After the station is completed, it will transmit more than 1.6 billion kilowatt-hours of clean energy annually, which can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1.3 million tons,” said Yan Ruiping, chief engineer of Panzhihua China Resources Hydropower Development Co., Ltd., affiliated to Sichuan Energy Development Group.
Standing at a new starting point, Sichuan is accelerating the planning and construction of a new energy system, promoting the complementary development of hydropower, wind power, solar power, hydrogen energy, natural gas and other energy sources, and striving to build itself into a strong province of clean energy. Zeng Guang, deputy director of the Sichuan Provincial Energy Bureau, said that Sichuan’s hydropower is transforming from “being able to generate electricity” to “being able to transmit electricity stably”, and upgrading from “resource advantages” to “system capabilities”. It is striving to play a greater role in serving the country’s “dual carbon” strategic goals and contribute to the construction of an energy powerhouse.
Source: Xinhua News Agency New Media
Published Time: 10:54, December 19, 2025, Beijing
Author: Xinhua News Agency Official Account
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