Two hydropower plants, totalling a capacity of 5.9 GW, have been commissioned in China’s Hebei and Qinghai provinces. The 3.6 GW Fengning pumped storage hydropower plant, operated by the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), has started full operations near the city of Chengde, Hebei (northern China). The power plant is expected to generate 6.6 TWh/year of electricity and offset emissions by about 1.2 MtCO2/year.
Meanwhile, CHN Energy has commissioned its 2.3 GW Maerdang hydropower plant, located on the upper reaches of the Yellow River, in the Qinghai province (western China). The plant, situated at an altitude of over 3,000m, comprises four 550 MW units as well as one 120 MW unit. It is expected to generate 7.3 TWh/year of electricity.
At the end of 2023, hydropower represented 14% of China’s installed capacity with 422 GW and 14% of its power generation with 1,286 TWh. The country holds the world’s largest estimated exploitable hydroelectricity resources at around 1,750 TWh. China aims to build more than 200 pumped storage plants with a combined capacity of 270 GW by 2025. At the end of 2023, China’s pumped-storage capacity reached 50.9 GW, a more than twofold increase compared to ten years earlier (21.5 GW in 2013).
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