China will begin working on another hydropower station on Yalong River, a major tributary on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, this month.

According to Chen Yunhua, general manager of the Ertan Hydropower Development Co. Ltd, the plant, situated on a curve in the Yalong River known as Jinping, has been approved by a panel of specialists organized by the State Council.

The hydropower plant, also called the second-tiered Jinping hydropower plant, will be located 17 km downstream from the first-tiered Jinping hydropower plant, which is now under construction.

The plant will have a budget of 29.8 billion yuan (about US$3.73 billion) and will have a designed installed capacity of 4.8 million kw, according to Chen.

It will require the flooding of 27 hectares of farmland and relocation of 23 households, involving 129 people, and is scheduled to be finished in 2014.

Yalong River, with a length of 1,571 km, is said to boast hydropower resources equivalent to 346.2 billion kw. Twenty hydropower stations will be built along the waterway to explore the river's rich hydropower resources.

So far, the country has completed construction of Ertan hydropower station, with a total installed capacity of 3.3 million kw, at the lower reaches of the Yalong. Ertan is capable of generating 17 billion kwh of electricity a year.

Construction of the first-tiered Jinping hydropower plant began on the same river in November last year. With a budget of 24 billion yuan and a designed installed capacity of 3.6 million kw, the first-tiered Jinping hydropower plant will be able to generate 16.62 billion kwh of electricity a year when it completes by 2014.

(Xinhua News Agency December 5, 2006)