China reports completion of the world's second-most powerful hydropower plant

Over recent decades, China has built a large number of power sources, including coal-fired, renewable and nuclear. For more than a decade, the country has had the world's most powerful hydropower plant, the Three Gorges Dam. It has recently completed construction of another giant hydropower plant, which, with a total installed capacity of 16 GW, has become the world's second-most powerful hydropower plant.

Construction of the new Baihetan hydropower plant, with sixteen turbines and a total capacity of 16 GW, has been fully completed, its developer China Three Gorges Corporation said, according to S&P Global. It has thus become the world's second-most powerful hydropower plant, behind only the Three Gorges Dam (22.5 GW), which was developed by the same company.

According to the project developer, the plant began generating electricity before its full completion, with some of its 16 turbines producing an average of 62 TWh of electricity per year. According to the operator, the new plant will generate as much electricity as coal-fired power plants would have to burn nearly 20 million tonnes of coal a year to produce.