If hydropower is prosperous, the nation’s luck will prosper. In the mid-1950s, the land of Zhejiang was a wilderness of electricity. On the Xin'an River, a tributary of the Qiantang River, in Jiande County, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, there is a hydropower station with an extremely special status. It is the first large-scale hydropower station designed, self-made, and self-constructed in China. It is known as the "experimental field of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River". ", a monument in the history of new China's hydropower industry, and a "living archive" in the history of China's hydropower development.

Red landmark decoding

In 1954, with the full development of socialist construction, the economic power consumption of East China became increasingly tense. In March of that year, Mao Zedong, who was inspecting Zhejiang, asked Jiang Hua, then deputy secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee: “In order to solve the problem of Zhejiang’s industrial development momentum, I heard that you are writing articles about Xin'anjiang?” Jiang Hua replied: “The Xin'anjiang Power Station is being built. There is no problem with Zhejiang’s electricity."

Mao Zedong said: "You have a good idea. Xin'anjiang wants to build a large-scale hydroelectric power station, but you can't just think of Zhejiang, but also contribute to Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Anhui. If the installed capacity of Xin'anjiang power station is hundreds of thousands of kilowatts, every year Generating billions of kilowatt-hours of electricity will be a big boost for industries in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing and other places."

On May 24, 1954, the East China Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China approved the construction of the Xin'anjiang Hydropower Station. In this context, in November, the Shanghai Hydropower Survey and Design Bureau was established, which is the historical source of the Shanghai Institute of Three Gorges Group.

With the trust and trust of the party and the country, along with the boom in the construction of the first "Five-Year Plan" in New China, the first generation of Shanghai academicians represented by Academician Pan Jiazheng adhered to the original intention of building dreams and serving the country with science and technology. The land rushed to the construction site of the hydropower station. On April 22, 1960, the first 72,500 kilowatt hydroelectric generating unit officially generated power. Xin'anjiang Hydropower Station has become my country's first large-scale hydroelectric power station with its own design, manufacturing and self-made equipment.

Premier Zhou Enlai wrote an inscription for this initiative: "Cheers for the successful construction of China's first large-scale hydroelectric power station with self-designed and self-made equipment."

Feeling the great changes in the past and the present

The construction of Xin'anjiang Hydropower Station has accumulated valuable experience for China's construction of large hydropower stations such as the Gezhouba Dam and the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, and has delivered a large number of talents and technologies. It has been hailed as a monument in the history of hydropower construction in New China.

In the decades after its completion, the Xin'anjiang Hydropower Station has been the main power plant of the East China Power Grid. At its peak, it provided 68% of the electricity in East China and solved the electricity problems in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other places.

This miracle created by nearly 20,000 technicians and workers with their wisdom and sweat has been praised by domestic and foreign hydropower experts. Now it also plays an important role in frequency modulation, peak shaving, and emergency backup.

In 2019, when the super typhoon "Lichma" struck, the Xin'anjiang Hydropower Station withstood the frequency fluctuations of the East China Power Grid and continued to deliver clean power to East China.

In the summer of 2020, the country suffered the worst flood situation since 1998. Due to the continuous impact of heavy rainfall, the Xin'anjiang Reservoir opened nine flood discharge channels to release floods, alleviating the pressure of flood control in Zhejiang, Anhui and other places.

On July 8, 2020, Xin'anjiang Reservoir released the first 9-hole flood.

A generation has left the most beautiful years on the land of Xin'anjiang. For more than sixty years, the Xin'anjiang Dam, which stands tall in the Tongguan Canyon, is still a “treasure project” in people’s hearts. Every year, countless tourists come to experience the red culture, receive red education, and build dreams. From Xin'an River to the Three Gorges, from China to the world famous, from "chaser" to "leader", from "Made in China" to "Created in China", China's water conservancy and hydropower construction has achieved brilliant successes one after another. Editor/Sang Xiaomei