China said Dec 30 that it was set to complete today the final testing of the second unit of the Maerdang Hydropower Station, the highest-altitude and largest-capacity hydropower project under construction in the Yellow River basin, located in Qinghai province. The first unit was put into operation in April this year.
There are no available details about the relocation of local Tibetans from the building of this major dam project which began in 2011 at Marteng (Chinese: Maerdang) in Ragya (Lajia) Town of Machen (Maqen) County, Golog (Guoluo) Prefecture.
A research on the Longyangxia reservoir, also in Qinghai province, by Jarmila Ptackova from the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic, in 2016 stated that the building of other dams in the province – Bingling, Jishixia, Dahejia, Huangfeng, Banduo, Yangdian, Maerdang, Shitouxia and Nazixia – will require the further relocation of 51,855 people by 2020.
On Dec 31, the five turbine generators, including four 550,000-kilowatt units and one 120,000-kilowatt unit, will be put into operation to generate electricity, reported
Located at an average altitude of 3,300 metres, the hydropower station has a total installed capacity of 2.32 million kilowatts. To harness the power of the fast-flowing water, the Maerdang Hydroelectric Station was built in a steep canyon, the report said.
Located in a nature reserve, the report claims that the construction of the hydropower station aimed to minimize its impact on local wildlife, providing some details about measures that had been taken for the purpose.
“Due to its challenging high-altitude terrain, the Maerdang Hydropower Station only began construction in recent years. Its completion and operation represent a major technological milestone,” Lin Boqiang, director of the China Centre for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, has said.
