At an altitude of over 3000 meters on the western Sichuan Plateau, the wind swept over the water surface of the Lianghekou Reservoir, making it hard to open one's eyes. On this cold and oxygen deficient land, a group of builders have been rooted here for many years. Recently, with the last shovel of soil and rock being transported out of the foundation pit, the excavation construction of the inlet and outlet foundation pits of the Lianghekou hybrid pumped storage power station has been successfully completed. This means that the world's largest under construction hybrid pumped storage power station has officially entered a new stage of main structure construction.

This power station relies on the existing Lianghekou Reservoir for renovation and expansion, and is the core supporting project of the integrated clean energy base of water, wind, solar and storage in the Yalong River Basin. It is like a huge high-altitude super power bank, which will undertake key missions such as peak shaving, valley filling, energy storage, and frequency regulation in the future, and steadily deliver the surging wind and photovoltaic power on the western Sichuan Plateau to thousands of households.

High altitude super power bank

The Lianghekou hybrid pumped storage power station is located in Yajiang County, Garze Prefecture, Sichuan Province, in the middle reaches of the Yalong River. The so-called hybrid pumped storage refers to the use of existing conventional hydropower station reservoirs as upper or lower reservoirs, and the construction of another reservoir to form a pumped storage system. This model eliminates the engineering workload and resettlement pressure of building large reservoirs, shortens the construction period, and achieves higher comprehensive benefits.

After the power station is built, when the power grid is in a low demand, it uses surplus electricity to pump water from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir, converting electrical energy into potential energy for water storage; When the peak electricity consumption comes, water will be released to generate electricity, and the potential energy will be converted back into electrical energy and fed back to the power grid. Between pumping and discharging, the spatial and temporal translation of electrical energy has been achieved, becoming an indispensable regulating center in the new power system.

The entire line of Shangku Hub has come to an end

The excavation of the upper reservoir inlet and outlet is a key hub for water exchange and energy conversion in the entire power station. It is like the throat of a power station - water flows in and out here, electricity is converted here, and any quality flaw can affect the safe operation of the entire power station.

The difficulty of construction should not be underestimated. The low air pressure and large temperature difference between day and night in high-altitude areas pose severe challenges for concrete pouring and anchoring construction. What's even more tricky is that during the excavation of the foundation pit, serious water leakage problems were encountered, which could threaten construction safety and progress at any time.

Faced with these challenges, the construction team built a concrete weir flood control system and erected a sturdy barrier around the foundation pit; Simultaneously building an intelligent anti-seepage grouting system, equipped with a lifting real-time monitoring device, to achieve second level perception and precise disposal of seepage conditions. This combination of punches not only resolves the significant risk of water leakage, but also accumulates valuable experience for similar high-altitude projects in the future.

Smart Construction Escort

Entering the construction site of the Lianghekou project, it is difficult to see the scene of traditional human tactics on the construction site. Instead, sets of digital equipment silently operate in the cold winds of the plateau.

In the anchor cable construction process, the project team innovatively implements a four-dimensional quality control system for anchor cable construction, which controls the construction quality of each anchor cable throughout the entire process from four dimensions. By using the paint labeling method, the quality status of each process is clear at a glance, achieving visual quality management - which anchor cable is qualified and which process is waiting for inspection, can be determined by the color.

On the construction site, the meteorological warning system provides real-time weather information on sudden changes in the plateau; AI security monitoring cameras automatically recognize behaviors such as not wearing safety helmets and entering dangerous areas in violation of regulations; The intelligent blasting system automatically optimizes the charging parameters based on the characteristics of the rock mass; Electronic fences implement all-weather intelligent control over key areas. These technologies together weave a refined and intelligent construction network, allowing this high-altitude super power bank to withstand the test of time in every detail.keywords:Engineering infrastructure

After the power station is fully put into operation, it will effectively stabilize the intermittent fluctuations in the output of new energy such as wind power and photovoltaics, and greatly enhance the consumption capacity of clean energy in western Sichuan. For the Sichuan Chongqing region, this not only means more reliable power security, but also an important step towards the transformation of energy structure towards green and low-carbon. Starting from a super power bank on a plateau, the future of clean electricity is gradually being fully charged.Editor/Yang Meiling