The first ray of sunshine in the morning pierced through the clouds and illuminated the rugged canyons of Yanyuan County in Liangshan. Under this seemingly silent mountain and river, a huge energy is waiting to be awakened. For engineer Wang Tuo from Kunming Survey and Design Institute of China Power Construction Group, every ridge and crack in front of him has been transformed into lines and data on precision drawings. Not long ago, his team successfully won the bid for the environmental monitoring technology service project of the Yalong River Yanyuan Baiwu Pumped Storage Power Station, which means that a competition with world-class engineering problems has officially entered the practical stage.

The reason why this project has attracted worldwide attention is due to its multiple parameters that break through limits. The rated water head is 907 meters - which is almost twice the energy contained in the water pouring down from the rooftop of Shanghai's "Global Financial Center" (about 492 meters). Such a high water head imposes almost stringent requirements on the materials, structural design, and manufacturing processes of the unit. To this end, the project innovatively adopts a new design of "separate arrangement of power generation and energy storage systems", and will be equipped with a single unit capacity of 850000 kilowatts of bucket type generator sets. This type of unit resembles an ancient water wheel, but can withstand the bullet like impact of water flow at a drop of about 900 meters. Its technical difficulty is known as the "Mount Everest" of the hydropower industry.

The strategic chess game behind the 15.6 billion investment

The total investment of 15.661 billion yuan is not only invested in the power station itself, but also a key move in China's energy structure transformation. With the rapid growth of new energy installations such as wind power and photovoltaics, their volatility and intermittency pose challenges to the stability of the power grid. Pumped storage power stations are like the "super power bank" of the power grid. They use electricity to pump water up the mountain for energy storage during low demand periods and release water for power generation during peak demand periods. They are currently the most mature and economical large-scale energy storage technology.

The site selection of the Baiwu Power Station is precisely based on the unique terrain of the middle reaches of the Yalong River - the huge natural drop and favorable geographical location. After its completion, it will become an important regulator and stabilizer for the Southwest China power grid, significantly enhancing the ability of Sichuan and even the entire regional power grid to absorb new energy, and ensuring the stable implementation of the West East power transmission strategy.

Technological breakthrough to conquer the engineering forbidden zone

Ultra high water head means extreme challenges. Under the pressure of nearly a kilometer of water head, high-speed water flow mixed with sediment wears down the flow components like a "grinding wheel"; Pressure pipelines need to withstand extremely high internal pressures; The complex geological conditions of earthquake fault zones further increase construction risks. Each of these is a world-class challenge.

For this reason, the project has made a lot of innovations during the design phase. The separated layout moderately disperses the power plant and upper and lower reservoirs, optimizes the utilization of geological conditions, and enhances system reliability. At present, the road and water diversion tunnel construction sections during the project preparation period have been put up for online bidding and will be opened in mid month. These preliminary projects are the "lifeline" of the main project, and also the "ticket" for construction companies to compete for the subsequent billion dollar main project. The bidding site will undoubtedly stage a "battle" without gunpowder.

Balancing Green Development and Ecological Protection

Constructing super projects on cliffs and cliffs, ecological protection is another bottom line that must be upheld. This is precisely the core task of the environmental monitoring team of China Power Construction Kunming Institute. Their work runs through the entire process, from conducting background investigations on the atmosphere, water quality, acoustic environment, and flora and fauna resources before construction, to real-time monitoring of dust, wastewater, waste residue, and noise during construction, and to long-term tracking of the watershed ecology during operation.

The project aims to minimize the impact on the fragile local ecological environment by constructing ecological flow discharge facilities, protecting fish habitats, restoring vegetation, and maintaining soil and water conservation. The goal is to create a green energy model that harmoniously coexists with the magnificent mountains and rivers.

When the bidding is finalized and the machinery enters the site, this ancient and magnificent landscape will witness how Chinese engineers use their wisdom and sweat to carve a new energy monument belonging to the new era in the "engineering forbidden zone". The construction of the Yalong River Yanyuan Baiwu Pumped Storage Power Station is not only challenging the limits of physics and technology, but also laying the most solid foundation for China to achieve its "dual carbon" goals and build a new power system with new energy as the mainstay.Editor/Yang Meiling