With an installed capacity of 2.4 million kilowatts, the Xulong Hydropower Station is the 12th level in the "one reservoir, thirteen cascades" development plan for the upper reaches of the Jinsha River. It is a key energy project in the upper Jinsha River and a key project slated to start construction during the national "14th Five-Year Plan" period. It is also the first hydropower project in the Yangtze River basin in China to be approved for construction since the implementation of the Yangtze River Protection Law of the People's Republic of China.

With its abundant hydropower, the Jinsha River ranks first among China's thirteen major hydropower bases and is the country's largest hydropower base and the main power source area for the "West-East Power Transmission" program. It boasts hydropower resources of 112.4 million kilowatts, technically developable hydropower resources of 88.91 million kilowatts, and annual power generation of more than 500 billion kilowatt-hours. Its hydropower concentration is the highest in the world, and it is also one of the regions in China with the highest degree of hydropower development, the largest number of hydropower projects, the greatest concentration of technology, and the greatest influence.

The Xulong project, developed and constructed by the Dadu River Company of the China Energy Investment Corporation, was approved in 2022. Its significance lies not only in the fact that, once completed, it can deliver more than 10 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity, but also in the fact that it brings together China's top production, academic, research, and construction forces to jointly build a super new-type hydropower project in the upper reaches of the Jinsha River in a plateau area at an altitude of about 2,400 meters.

Walking into the narrow Jinsha River valley, one finds the dam foundation pit construction area of the Xulong Hydropower Station crowded with people and resounding with machinery.

On site, nearly 500 builders and more than 200 sets of construction equipment are excavating the last approximately 900,000 cubic meters of earth and rock from the dam foundation pit, working hard toward the goal of pouring the first concrete within the year. Intense ultraviolet radiation, a dry climate that easily causes skin cracking, and uncomfortable altitude sickness have not stopped them from completing the 8 million cubic meter foundation pit excavation target in 30 months and setting national construction records for a double-curvature arch dam: an average daily excavation volume of 25,000 cubic meters and a monthly elevation drop of 25 meters in abutment excavation.

The Xulong Hydropower Station dam is 213 meters high and is a concrete double-curvature arch dam. In the hydropower industry, the key to building a concrete dam lies in controlling the temperature of the poured concrete. The Xulong dam site is located in the core area of a dry-hot valley climate. These special climatic conditions make the concrete temperature control at Xulong different from that of conventional hydropower projects, and the subject has therefore been included in the research scope of the National Key Laboratory of Intelligent Construction and Operation and Maintenance of Water Conservancy Projects.

At the construction site, special meetings on concrete temperature control technology are held almost every month. The pouring schemes from giant hydropower stations such as Jinping, Baihetan, Xiluodu, and Wudongde, as well as the dam pouring experience from the Dadu River Dagangshan Hydropower Station, a national quality project gold award project under the Dadu River Company system with the same dam type, have served as valuable references and become the technical starting point for Xulong's temperature control scheme.

The abundant resource endowment of the upper Jinsha River naturally makes Xulong a pioneer demonstration project for the new-type power system, attracting widespread attention from China's energy industry. The Dadu River Company, which is responsible for project construction, plays the principal role, focusing on technological transformation, industry challenges, and future applications. Grounded in the key principle of "driving scientific and technological innovation through major project construction and leading new-type hydropower construction through scientific and technological innovation," it has strengthened practical research on key generic technologies and cutting-edge leading technologies across multiple vertical tracks such as technology, materials, processes, equipment, and artificial intelligence, striving to build a demonstration project for new-type hydropower.

In order to build the new-type hydropower project well under the new-type power system and to give full play to its pioneering and demonstrative role with practical value and potential for large-scale promotion, the on-site construction management unit, Xulong Company, has formulated a construction blueprint for the Xulong new-type hydropower project featuring "safety and reliability, flexibility and efficiency, ecological friendliness, and intelligent integration."

Under the leadership of the Dadu River Company, a grand scene of linkage across China's hydropower industry chain has formed around the Xulong project. The support of advantageous industrial resources and the concentrated release of innovative production capacity have enabled a large number of breakthrough technologies to move from blueprint to reality in the Xulong project.

In response to design challenges such as high altitude, the 200-meter head range, and ecological flow assurance, the Xulong project joined hands with top domestic equipment manufacturing enterprises. Over two years, in accordance with the stable operation requirements of Xulong's Francis units, they continuously carried out model selection and experiments, verified optimal design parameters, and successfully overcame the industry challenge of "operation across the full 0 to 100% load range" for hydropower units. This has made the "inherent deficiencies" in the design and manufacture of hydropower units a thing of the past and pushed China's turbine design, manufacturing technology, and operating standards to a new height.

Yang Xiaosong of the Xulong Company Innovation Studio, who participated in the scientific and technological research on the new-type unit, said: "The Xulong new-type unit has broken through the constraints of the low-load vibration zone and can operate stably in any load range. It can also simultaneously meet multiple energy needs such as ecology and hydro-photovoltaic complementarity. These are all unprecedented."

In Xulong's innovation scenarios, "seeking truth from facts and solving problems" is the phrase mentioned most often.

In order to build the Xulong Hydropower Station into a benchmark for the new-type power system, the construction team has extensively absorbed domestic experience in smart power plant construction, planned ahead, and incorporated intelligent equipment into the integrated bidding for main equipment, achieving synchronous design, synchronous manufacturing, and synchronous installation of main equipment and intelligent system equipment. This has enabled the smart power plant to evolve from a model of "hard-wiring" intelligent equipment into a truly integrated "entity," redefining domestic standards for the design and construction of smart power plants.

 Source:Voice of China Energy