China
Engineering innovations help secure large dams
By Ma Xiaowen  ·  2024-09-27  ·   Source: NO.40-41 OCTOBER 3, 2024
The Three Gorges Dam in Yichang, Hubei Province in central China, on September 10 (XINHUA)

When it comes to safety, the burden is heavy. Recently, professionals in hydropower engineering and related fields gathered in Yichang, Hubei Province, to discuss the potential risks the world's dams are facing and the latest hydropower engineering innovations. 

This year, the annual meeting of the China National Committee on Large Dams (CHINCOLD), a platform for exchange on China's hydropower industry, both at home and abroad, coincided with the Fifth International Symposium on Dam Safety, attracting over 900 specialists and engineers from more than 20 countries, including Brazil, Spain, the United States, Indonesia, Zambia and Ethiopia.

The joint conference, themed Building Safe, Resilient and Green Large Dams for the National Water Network, was held from September 24 to 25 in Yichang, which is home to the Three Gorges Dam, the largest dam structure in the world.

Dam safety was one of the main topics discussed during the two-day conference. "To build safe, resilient and green large dams for national water networks, apart from studying traditional safety issues, we need to examine potential risks to dams generated by extreme complex environmental conditions," said Jiao Yong, President of CHINCOLD, at the opening ceremony on September 24.

In his keynote speech, Jiao elaborated on what he termed "extremely complex environments" as new risks rising from more and more frequent extreme weather due to climate change, the threat barrier lakes pose to the safety of step hydropower stations, and potential wars, considering the increasing uncertainties worldwide.

Statistics from the Ministry of Water Resources show that by September 2021, China had built more than 98,000 dams, with a total storage capacity of 898.3 billion cubic meters.

There are 223 dams over 100 meters in height, 23 ultra-high dams over 200 meters, and 10 over 250 meters across China, accounting for a quarter, a third, and half of the world's total, respectively. The storage capacity of these dams is huge. Dams and reservoirs over 100 meters in height only account for 0.2 percent of the total number in China, but their storage capacity is more than 500 billion cubic meters, accounting for half of the country's total.

Large dams influence both the upstream and downstream banks of a river, so their safety is important for overall economic and social development, said Jiao.

Preventing risks 

Jiao called for placing dam safety at the core of the whole process of planning, construction and operation, improving the safety and resilience of reservoir dams through scientific and technological innovation, as well as conducting in-depth studies of dam safety risks under extreme environmental conditions.

"If the whole process, from field survey to design, from construction to operation, is empowered by digital technologies, the data resources in the dam engineering field are pooled and shared, and the intelligent analysis of big data and cloud computing in dam safety is realized, it will certainly pave a new way to improve the safety and resilience of dams," Jiao noted.

Apart from domestic dams, China also operates dams abroad. China Three Gorges Corp. (CTG), the largest hydropower developer in the world, is operating 68 dams in China and overseas. The company is a shareholder in over 20 countries' dam projects, with investment of more than 190 billion yuan ($26.6 billion), and an installed capacity of 19 million kilowatts.

China has a good record when it comes to dam safety and is upholding its high standards abroad. Chen Hui, CEO of China Three Gorges International Corp., a subsidiary of CTG, told the conference that while ensuring full compliance with Brazilian local legal requirements as the basis, the company also established a three-level dam safety management system, including both CTG headquarters and CTG Brazil, with clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and had achieved the goal of categorizing all dams as low risk and at a normal safety level.

New technologies are being applied to increase the resilience and lifespan of dams and mitigate possible risks. Zhu Song, a researcher at Shenzhen University, demonstrated new methods of precision measurement and their applications in hydropower engineering projects. Zhu told the conference that precision measurement can assist in monitoring the surface of dams, providing an important foundation for digital modeling and carrying out digital operation and maintenance.

Dean Durkee, Vice President of the International Commission on Large Dams and former President of the U.S. Society on Dams, was invited to provide an update on U.S. practices. According to Durkee, the oldest dam in the U.S. is nearly 400 years old and since its construction, over 90,000 dams have been built across the country. Many of these were constructed between the 1940s and 1980s, and it was during these decades that the U.S. developed its dam-related technologies.

Durkee said he believes China is having a similar experience of developing technology, building a lot of dams, and learning from their operation.

Xu Zumiao, Deputy General Manager of China Three Gorges Publishing and Media Co. Ltd., told Beijing Review on the sidelines of the conference that dams in China and the U.S. are in different phases of their life cycle.

While most U.S. dams were built earlier—with their average age over 50, providing the U.S. with more data and experience in managing aging dams, China has the latecomer advantage of technologies such as big data and cloud computing, which assists in the operation and maintenance of dams.

Raising public awareness 

Dams and reservoirs help protect their surrounding regions from floods and increased coordination between dams will make this process more efficient.

At the conference, Xu Yinshan, Director of the Bureau of Hydrology, Changjiang Water Resources Commission under the Ministry of Water Resources, gave a presentation on his observations of the floods that occurred along the Yangtze River this year, and evaluated the efficiency of coordinated operation of reservoirs to mitigate flood damage in the region.

Chang Zuowei, Deputy Chief Engineer at the China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute, rebuked the claim that reservoirs are one of the sources of greenhouse gases. He explained that most of a dam's carbon footprint is created during its construction and that, spread over the life of the dam, which is often more than 50 years and sometimes over 100 years, its annual greenhouse gas emissions are very low.

Li Yafang, President of the China International Communications Group Center for the Americas, shared the center's efforts in reporting China's commitment to sustainable development and called on companies with a global presence to share more stories of sustainable development with the world.

Like China, Angola has high expectations for hydropower and the nation hopes to develop a more sustainable, efficient, and inclusive energy sector that supports development, drives economic growth, and attracts large-scale investment.

Pedro Eduardo Manuel Afonso, CEO of Angola National Electricity Generation Co. Ltd., said at the conference that the country counts on hydropower and solar power to decrease the thermal contribution to its energy structure and give more people access to electricity.

Chen Li, Deputy Dean of the School of Public Administration at Hohai University, provided suggestions on information openness, stakeholder involvement in the overall process of dams and more. BR

(Reporting from Yichang, Hubei Province)

(Print Edition Title: Fortresses of Water) 

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

Comments to maxiaowen@cicgamericas.com 

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