The final generating unit of the Jinchuan Hydropower Station on the Dadu River in Sichuan Province, located in southwestern China, was officially connected to the grid on June 20, marking the station’s full commissioning and operation at its designed capacity.
The Jinchuan Hydropower Station is located in Jinchuan County and Maerkang City of Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture along the upper reaches of the Dadu River. With a total installed capacity of 860,000 kilowatts, it is a key national energy development project. During construction, the project team overcame the world-class challenge of building a dam on a riverbed with deep overburden deposits and achieved a number of industry-leading technological breakthroughs. These included the completion of China’s tallest concrete-faced rockfill dam of its type at 112 meters, the establishment of an innovative construction technology system for large underground cavern complexes under complex geological conditions, and the commissioning of Asia’s longest eco-friendly fish passage combining a natural river channel and tunnel system, demonstrating deep integration between engineering innovation and ecological protection.
As China’s fifth-largest hydropower base, the Dadu River has a total installed capacity exceeding 27 million kilowatts and serves as a major power source supporting the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle. CHN Energy Dadu River Company holds development rights for 17 cascade hydropower stations along the river’s main stream and has already put into operation more than 13 million kilowatts of hydropower capacity. Since the beginning of this year, the company has continued to accelerate the construction of key hydropower projects across the river basin. With the successive commissioning of four generating units at the Chuosijia Hydropower Station and one generating unit at the Shaping I Hydropower Station, hydropower development in the Dadu River Basin has entered a period of intensive project commissioning.
