POWER September 2013 - 15

And in the last week of July, four Alstom-manufactured
800-MW class Francis
turbines, each coupled with an 889 MVA
generator (Figure 3), began commercial
operation at China's Xiangjiaba underground
hydro power plant, which is also
located on the Jinsha River, a Yangtze River
tributary, in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces.
According to Alstom, the 800-class
units made for plant owner CTG are " the
most powerful hydroelectric generating
units in the world. " To start with, the
generators are " the only air-cooled generators
in the world with 23kV windings, "
the French firm says. " This high voltage
allows an optimized electrical design for
such a high power output. " At almost 10
meters in diameter, the turbine runners
weigh more than 400 metric tons.
When all eight units are operational,
the 6.4-GW facility will become an integral
power source in the country's West
to East Electricity Transfer Project, which
is designed to power energy-shortagestricken
urban and industrial centers on
the east coast. The South-North Water
Transfer Project, which seeks to transfer
35 billion cubic meters of water every year
from China's wet south to its arid north,
and the West to East Project are China's
two biggest infrastructure developments
under way. Initiated during the 10th
Five-Year Plan (2000 to 2005), the West
to East Electricity Transfer Project's first
phase continues to expand the western
province's generating capacity-mostly
through construction of new coal units and
hydropower plants-as well as through
the construction of three transmission
corridors that connect newly built capacity
in the north, central, and south to the
eastern coast (Figure 4, next page).
The Three Gorges Dam, the world's biggest
power project, which is located on
the middle reaches of the Yangtze River
and is slated to be fully completed by
2015, will also play a central role in the
West-East project.
The Xiangjiaba dam will be connected
to Chinese industrial and commercial hub
Shanghai about 2,000 kilometers away
by the ABB-designed 800-kV XiangjiabaShanghai
line, which became the world's
first ultra-high-voltage direct current
transmission line when it was completed
in July 2010.
The World's Most Colossal
Offshore Wind Farm Opens
The $2.9 billion London Array-the world's
biggest offshore wind farm-opened this
July in the Outer Thames Estuary about 12
September 2013 | POWER
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POWER September 2013

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