The site of the magnificent White Crane Beach Dam
Zhiyuan Reading City: At the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, China solemnly announced that carbon dioxide emissions will strive to peak by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Therefore, hydropower as a clean energy source has attracted much attention. At present, China is far ahead in the construction of large hydropower stations. The Baihetan Hydropower Station on the Jinsha River, which is about to be completed and put into operation, is the largest hydropower station under construction in the world at present, and it is worthy of the "heavy equipment of the country". What is less well known is that the role played by "Hubei Elements" is very important.
Proud "Heavy Instrument of the Nation"
Before White Crane Beach, there had never been a million kilowatt-class hydroelectric generator set in the world. Even the Three Gorges Dam uses only 700,000 kilowatts of hydroelectric generators. The closest to the Baihetan giant unit is the 850,000-kilowatt unit installed at the Wudongde Hydropower Station on the Jinsha River, which started construction at the end of 2015 and has now entered operation.
As the world's largest hydropower project under construction, Baihetan Hydropower Station can be compared to China's high-speed rail, telling another story that embodies the rise of "Made in China".
After the water storage, the Jinsha River reservoir area has beautiful scenery
White Crane Beach Hydroelectric Dam in the early hours of the morning
The source of this story is in Hubei.
At the beginning, when the Three Gorges Project of the Yangtze River was built, 32 700,000 kilowatt hydroelectric generators were needed. However, the domestic manufacturing capacity at that time could only produce 300,000 kilowatts of hydroelectric generators.
In this case, China has introduced high-power hydroelectric generators from Alstom and others in France. Subsequently, under the leadership of the Three Gorges Group, the integration of national scientific research strength and manufacturing strength not only realized the localization of 700,000 kilowatts of giant hydroelectric generators, but also successively launched 770,000 kilowatts, 800,000 kilowatts, 850,000 kilowatts of hydroelectric generators, until the development of 1 million kilowatts of giant hydroelectric generators, one after another to refresh the world record.
With the great success of the Three Gorges Hydropower Project gaining more and more recognition, becoming the world's best hydropower station construction brand, the construction of hydropower stations led by the Three Gorges Group "Made in China" has begun to attack the city in the country and even the world.
In the case of the Jinsha River basin, four large hydropower stations have been built on the Jinsha River, which is more than 3,000 kilometers long: including the Wudongde Hydropower Station with 12 850,000 kilowatt hydroelectric generators in the uppermost reaches; the second level, which is the Baihetan Hydropower Station that we have visited in depth this time; the third level, the Xiluodu Hydropower Station with 18 770,000 kilowatt hydroelectric generators; and the most downstream is the Xiangjiaba Hydropower Station with eight 800,000 kilowatt hydroelectric generators. They are all built by the Three Gorges Group.
In today's world, the Three Gorges Group, as the "Big Mac" of hydropower projects, has set six world records in succession at the Baihetan Hydropower Station alone, including: the first use of one-million-kilowatt hydroelectric generator sets in the world; the construction of the world's largest underground cave group; the construction of the world's largest group of pressure-free flood relief caves; the construction of the world's largest cylindrical tailwater pressure regulation chamber; the world's highest 300-meter high arch dam seismic indicators; and the world's first use of low-heat cement concrete in all 300-meter high arch dams.
Not only that, the three gorges hydropower construction corps has also vigorously "gone out" and currently has projects in more than 40 countries around the world. The overseas key markets of the Three Gorges Group include: the European and American markets with developed new energy industries, the Latin American and African markets rich in river hydropower resources, and neighboring countries with power interconnection conditions.
Nowadays, with the "Three Gorges Brand" in the construction of world-class large-scale water conservancy and power projects, Hubei Elements has once again laid its own brand on the rising "Made in China".
Artificial rainbow on the White Crane Beach Dam
Unit 14, which has been put into operation to generate electricity, has 8,000 tons of behemoth running at high speed under its feet, and people standing on it are extremely stable
"Hubei flavor" in BaiheTan
In May 2020, Lei Mingshan, chairman of the Three Gorges Group, publicly said, "Three Gorges Group is an enterprise born and raised in Hubei, and Hubei Province and Wuhan City are our hometowns." ”
Most of the backbone of the Business of the Baihetan Hydropower Station was transferred to this area from Gezhouba and after the Three Gorges Dam Project War. Among them, there are many "Ge Second Generation", or even "Ge Third Generation".
When I entered the heart of the Baihetan Hydropower Station, the power generation workshop buried deep in the belly of the mountain, the author met a large number of Hubei people who were struggling selflessly here.
The main plant on the right side of the Baihetan Hydropower Station
One of their representatives is Mei Lin, a crane loading and unloading operator from Yichang. This middle-aged woman is the person we were recommended to interview by the Baihetan Mechanical and Electrical Project Department of Gezhouba Mechanical and Electrical Company. Because of her excellent crane operation skills, Mei Lin was praised by all parties as a typical example of "big country craftsman".
Her skills include the ability to accurately insert a cup-sized pin into a pin hole in just two to three attempts at an altitude of thirty meters, beyond the line of sight. And 10 pins can firmly fix the behemoth weighing 2,000 tons. The average operator has to try one or two dozen times to do this.
The great country craftsman Merlin is at work
Another of Merlin's unique skills is to operate a crane, which accurately installs the 2300-ton generator rotor into the middle of the generator stator. Once installed, the gap between the rotor and the stator, which also weighs thousands of tons, does not exceed 43 mm. After the rotor is run, the amplitude of the swing does not exceed 0.15 mm.
Prior to this, Mei Lin had challenged the hoisting of a 1500-ton generator rotor at the Three Gorges Hydropower Station, and at the Xiluodu Hydropower Station, she challenged the hoisting of a 1800-ton generator rotor.
Each time, Merlin was pushing her limits. And this limit is also the limit in the history of the installation of hydropower projects in the world.
The site of the finishing project of the Baihetan Power Station
It is precisely because of the existence of a "big country craftsman" like Merlin that a million kilowatt-level giant hydroelectric generator can be smoothly installed and generate electricity smoothly.
In the Baihetan Hydropower Station, there are thousands of Hubei employees like Mei Lin, as a new generation of big country craftsmen, on the one hand, they bring the experience of "Made in Hubei" to the whole country and the world; on the other hand, they use their youth to write the most brilliant miracle in the history of world hydropower.
What is even more gratifying is that many young hydropower people from Hubei after the 80s and 90s have also grown rapidly in such a world-class project and embarked on backbone posts.
Hubei industrial chain serving the "heavy equipment of the country"
In addition to the many "big country craftsmen" from Hubei, Hubei's contribution to world-class hydropower projects such as the Baihetan Hydropower Station is also reflected in the great contribution of Hubei enterprises.
In the process of building the Three Gorges Project, a large number of local enterprises in Hubei have also grown, and formed a relatively complete integrated industrial chain supporting world-class large-scale water conservancy and hydropower projects.
The Baihetan Hydropower Station set a world first because of the use of low-heat cement in the whole dam. Among them, Hubei enterprise Huaxin Cement is indispensable. Huaxin supplies half of the low-heat cement to Baihetan, worth nearly 1 billion yuan.
The large volume concrete of mega dams often shrinks and contracts due to thermal expansion and contraction caused by the heat of cement during the pouring process, resulting in cracks in the dam body. The Baihetan Dam applies low-heat cement throughout the dam, with a strict temperature control process, from april 2017, when the first warehouse of the dam was poured, to May 31 this year, the dam was poured to the top, and more than 8 million cubic meters of concrete in the whole dam did not have a temperature crack, and a real seamless dam was built, which solved this worldwide problem.
The momentum is like a rainbow
Such Hubei enterprises are not only Huaxin Cement. Liao Wangjie of the Party and Mass Work Department of the Baihetan Engineering Construction Department provided a list of E-enterprises that contributed to the mechanical and electrical equipment of the Baihetan million kilowatt unit after preliminary sorting:
Yichang Limin Electric Construction Engineering Company, providing air duct system; Yangtze River Three Gorges Nengshida Electric Company, providing auxiliary control system equipment, etc.; Shenglong Electric Group, Provide 0.4kV switchgear and its ancillary equipment; Wuhan Zhongyuan Huadian Technology Co., Ltd., providing fault recording and broadcasting system equipment; Wuhan Fanke Substation Maintenance Equipment Manufacturing Company, providing generator stator withstand voltage test equipment; Wuhan Rendu Technology Co., Ltd., providing regional dispatching and exchange system equipment; Wuhan Qiaoya Electromechanical Technology Co., Ltd., providing oil system equipment; Geruituo Power Co., Ltd., providing low-pressure compressed air system equipment, etc.
If you look at the entire Baihetan hydropower project, this list will be even longer.
In this way, a "Made in China" brand with roots in Hubei and a worldwide reputation slowly unfolds its story: it is both magnificent and meticulous; it is both iron and tender like water; it is rooted in the past and faces the future... Lyrics of the wonderful moments on the rise of great powers. (Photo/Wen Wu Zhiyuan)
(Editor-in-charge: Zhang Jun, Rong Xianming)
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