Sources from the annual conference of Hydropower Construction Management Professional Committee under the China Hydropower Engineering Association said China has set the initial hydropower development plan for the Lancang River reaches. By 2020 the Lancang River reach will produce a total of 22 million KW installed capacity.

According to the plan, 15 step power stations with a total installed capacity of 25.605 million KW will be built in the Lancang River reaches. Eight step hydroelectric power stations with 9.4 million KW installed capacity and 46 billion KWH annual output will be set up in the upper reaches. Another 7 step power stations with 16.005 million KW installed capacity and 73.7 billion KWH annual output will be built in the middle and lower reaches.

Step power stations in the Lancang River reaches have been listed as key bases to activate the “West-to-East” electricity transfer strategy. Relevant authorities started the overall development of the Lancang River reaches from the accomplished Manwan Hydropower Station some years ago.

Now, the first phase of Manwan Hydropower Station and Dazhao Mountain Hydropower Station construction has finished. The Xiaowan Hydropower Station with an installed capacity of 4.2 million KW is currently under construction. It’s supposed that the first power-generating unit will be deployed by 2010 and construction finally finished by 2012.

Experts pinpoint that overall development confronts many difficulties such as insufficient capital input for packaged projects, over-rapid expenses for restoring forest vegetation and lowered power pricing for the Manwan station. All these difficulties have affected the construction process to some extent. The Lancang River originates in southern Qinghai Province, where its highest tributaries wind down the valleys of the Tanggula Mountains. It enters Tibet Autonomous Region and Yunnan Province and flows out of China from Mengla County of the Xishuangbanna Autonomous Prefecture. The section out of China, called Mekong River, empties into the South China Sea near Hoh Chi Minh City in Vietnam after making its way through Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia.

(China.org.cn by Alex Xu and Daragh Moller, December 15, 2003)