Global hydropower outlook report puts China at the head of the pack
Centrepiece of country’s efforts is Yarlung Tsangpo project, expected to generate roughly three times as much power as Three Gorges Dam
China is cementing its dominance in global hydropower, highlighted by the Yarlung Tsangpo hydropower project – expected to be the world’s largest – and a massive pipeline of “pumped storage” facilities serving as Beijing’s strategic push to transform its fossil-fuel-reliant electricity grid into a stable, renewables-based network.
In its annual outlook report, the International Hydropower Association (IHA) said that with an estimated annual output capability of 300,000 gigawatt-hours, the Yarlung Tsangpo project could generate roughly three times as much electricity as the Three Gorges Dam.
Brandon Marler, the association’s senior energy policy officer, said the Yarlung Tsangpo project, in Medog, in the southeastern corner of China’s Tibet autonomous region, was on track to have an installed capacity of 60 gigawatts.
However, such megaprojects face immense hurdles, with IHA president Malcolm Turnbull lamenting that Moore’s law – which posits that the number of transistors packed onto a microchip will double every two years or so – “does not apply to digging holes”.