The Maerdang Dam is a concrete-face rock-fill dam on the upper

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

Maqên County Maqên or Maqin County is a county of Qinghai Province, China. It is under the administration of Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Name The county is named for Anyê Maqên, the Tibetan name for a revered local mountain. Administrative div ...

Qinghai Province Qinghai is an inland province in Northwestern China. It is the largest province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xining. Qinghai borders Gansu on the nort ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. Construction on the dam began in 2011 and its

hydropower Hydropower (from Ancient Greek -, "water"), also known as water power or water energy, is the use of falling or fast-running water to Electricity generation, produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by energy transformation, ...

station was originally expected to be operational in 2018. On 13 November 2013, the river was successfully diverted around the construction site. The complex is located at an elevation of over 3,000 m

AMSL Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level v ...

, and its construction presented extreme challenges due to the high altitude, cold climate and lower oxygen level, which delayed its completion. Located in a nature reserve, the construction of the hydropower station required measures aimed to mitigate its impact on local wildlife, including fish lifts that help fish migrate upstream. The power plant went into full operation as the last one of its five

turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced can be used for generating electrical ...

s was successfully connected to the

power grid ''Power Grid'' is the English-language version of the second edition of the multiplayer German-style board game ''Funkenschlag'', designed by Friedemann Friese and first released in 2004. ''Power Grid'' was released by Rio Grande Games. I ...

on December 31, 2024. The station is operated by CHN Energy, a state-owned energy enterprise and has a total installed capacity of 2.32 GW. Maerdang hydropower station is expected to generate an average of over 7.3 TW of electricity each year.

References

{{Yellow River dams Dams in China Dams on the Yellow River Dams under construction in China Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Concrete-face rock-fill dams Hydroelectric power stations in Qinghai

See also

References