China power crunch to worsen as drought slashes hydropower
By David Stanway, with additional reporting by Niu Shuping in Beijing and Ruby Lian in Shanghai; Editing by Ken Wills
25 May 2011 BEIJING (Reuters) – The worst drought to hit central China in half a century has brought water levels in some of the country’s biggest hydropower producing regions to critical levels and could exacerbate electricity shortages over the summer. The official Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday that the water level at the world’s biggest hydropower plant at the Three Gorges Dam in Hubei province has fallen to 152.7 meters, well below the 156-m mark required to run its 26 turbines effectively. Total capacity at the Three Gorges hydropower project amounts to 18.2 gigawatts, the equivalent of about 15 third-generation nuclear reactors and more than a third of Hubei’s total. It generated 84.4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2010, delivering power as far afield as Shanghai on the eastern coast. The water level is expected to fall further to around 145 meters by June 10, when planned discharges are scheduled to end. The drought has struck at the time of year when China’s hydropower output would normally surge. Hydro output bottoms out in January and February and peaks over the summer. During six months of last year, from May to October, 20 percent of China’s electricity generation was hydropower. High temperatures and record low rainfall in 2011 have caused water levels on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River to dwindle, cutting support to thousands of hydropower plants as well as millions of hectares of farmland. Official figures from Hubei province earlier this week showed that 1,392 reservoirs in the region are now too depleted to generate any electricity at all. Water levels on the Yangtze midstream are 6 meters lower than they were the same time last year, with rainfall only a fifth of the levels seen in 2010, according to the China Daily newspaper, quoting local drought relief agencies. …
