The first phase of the world’s largest hydro-solar power station at the highest altitude, the Kela PV power plant, has been put into operation in China on June 25.
The Kela PV power station is located on a mountain at an altitude of 4,600 meters in Yajiang County of Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of southwest China’s Sichuan Province.
The power plant is next to National Highway 318, a key transport route connecting Sichuan and Xizang Autonomous Region. With an area exceeding 16 million square meters, it is bigger than 2,000 standard football fields.
With an annual energy output of 2 billion KWh, it has the capacity to meet the energy demand of up to 700,000 households. As a landmark project of the Yalong River clean energy demonstration base, the first phase of the power station has an installed capacity of 1 million KW.
"This is equivalent to 600,000 tonnes of standard coal and will reduce CO2 emissions by more than 1.6 million tonnes," the construction project manager of PowerChina Chengdu Engineering Co., Yang Zhiwei said.
Once the demonstration base completed, it will have an installed capacity of 100 million KW and is predicted to produce 300 billion KWh annually, which is sufficient to meet the power demand of 100 million households.