Boland Hydropower

  Baihetan Hydropower Station, the world's second largest after the Three Gorges Dam, is expected to have its last reservoir completed on Monday in Southwest China.  The station, with a total installed capacity of 16 million kilowatts, is expected to generate more than 62 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, which would reduce carbon dioxide emission by about 51.6 million tons, according to experts.  The Baihetan station is located downstream of the Jinsha River, in the upper section of the Yangtze River, in Ningnan county of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, and Qiaojia county in neighboring Yunnan Province.  The construction of the main body of the station is expected to be finished on Monday. Its first unit is scheduled to start operations on July 1. The station will be in full operation by the end of 2022.  The Baihetan hydropower station is the world's first to have a power unit with a capacity of 1 million kilowatts with 111 revolutions per mi...

  About 90 per cent work on the under-construction Koto hydropower project (Koto-HPP) has been done and it will be completed by December this year, said assistant project director while briefing a team of the district administration. The team, including deputy commissioner Aun Haider Gondal, Timergara assistant commissioner Tahir Ali and other officials, visited the project site here the other day. Giving details, Koto-HPP assistant director Mohammad Shuaib said the powerhouse would generate 40.8MW of electricity that would be added to the national grid. He said that the remaining 10 per cent work on the project would be completed by coming December. He said work on the power tunnel had been completed by the contractor before its stipulated time. The deputy commissioner inspected various portions of the power station like box channel, surge shaft, sand trap and powerhouse and assured his full cooperation on part of his district administration for the timely completion of the projec...

  Taiwan's hydroelectric power generation has been hit hard by the drought this year, including the Dajia River Hydropower Plant in Taichung, Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) said Tuesday. According to the state-run utility company, hydroelectric power plants contribute roughly 2 percent-3 percent of electricity to the nation's power grid every year. The combined power generation of Taiwan's hydropower plants dropped to 1.319 billion kWh in the first quarter of the year from 1.385 billion kWh in the same period last year, Taipower explained. Of all the hydroelectric plants, the Taichung facility suffered the most significant drop at 46 percent, due to declining water levels in the Dajia River, it said. Due to the lasting drought, many hydro plants have been unable to achieve their intended effectiveness because water also has to be released from the dams so that the surrounding populace can have water. This is especially the case in central Taiwan, where water has to be released...

  The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will stop financing new coal power plants under a draft energy policy released Friday, a move that was cautiously welcomed by environmental groups. The ADB, which provides loans and grants for projects in the poorest countries in the Asia Pacific region, said it would no longer fund any coal mining, oil and natural gas field exploration, drilling or extraction activities. "Coal and other fossil fuels have played a large part in ensuring access to energy for the region's economic development, but they have not solved the energy access challenge, and their use harms the environment and accelerates climate change," the Manila-based bank said in the document. Instead, the ADB will provide funds for natural gas projects and "hybrid electricity solutions" involving fossil fuels as backup systems based on certain criteria, according to the draft. Between 2009 and 2019, the ADB awarded $42.5 billion to energy sector projects in Asia, w...

  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts recently passed a climate hill that sets a target of net-zero emissions for the state by the year 2050. The bill is one of several successful legislative efforts in Northeastern states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 80 to 100 percent by mid-century. To achieve these ambitious targets — which align with the Paris Agreement’s long-term goal of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius to avoid the worst impacts of climate change — will require a significant ramp-up of zero-carbon, intermittent, renewable energy technologies. Hydropower is a particularly appealing renewable energy option for policymakers in the region; substantial hydro resources available in nearby Quebec could be used to dispatch power to consumers in Northeastern states during periods of low wind and solar generation. But environmental and aesthetic concerns have mobilized communities along proposed hydro transmission line routes to...