Main Buildings of Three Gorges Project

As the largest water conservancy project in the world, the Three Gorges Project consists of the dam, hydropower station and ship lift.

Main Buildings of Three Gorges Project – Dam

The dam built on the river bed of the Yangtze River is a gravity dam which made up of over 180, 000,000 cubic meters concrete. The dam is 2309.47 meters long, 181 meters high at the highest part, and the elevation of the dam top is 185 meters. In order to guarantee the Yangtze River navigable during the construction time, the dam was divided into two parts. One part of the dam is 1600 meters long, which located on the left bank of the Three Gorges diversion canal. It is made up of 23 spillway sections, factory building section and non-overflow section. The other part of the dam is the 600 meters long right bank dam. In 2009, the two parts of the dam connected together.

Main Buildings of Three Gorges Project – Hydropower Station

The Three Gorges Hydropower Station is built behind the dam. The hydropower station is divided into two factory buildings, each on the right side and left side, totally installed 26 machines with 700,000 KW generating capacity, and the annual generating capacity is 847 KWH. Among them, the right bank power station is next to the south bank of the Yangtze River, with 12 machines sets; while the left bank power station is next to the north bank of the Yangtze River, with 14 machine sets. These machine sets are largest sets in the world.

Main Buildings of Three Gorges Project – Ship Lock and Ship Lift

The permanent navigation buildings of the Three Gorges Project include permanent ship lock and ship lift, which are located in the mountain of the left bank.

The permanent ship lock is double line five stages ship lock, which was dug out on the granite mountain. The approach channels of the upstream and downstream connect with the main river bed of Yangtze River. The ship lock is 1607 meters long. Adding the approach channel, the whole ship lock is 6.4 kilometers long, and ten thousand tons ships can pass by it. No matter the scale of the ship lock, or the lift, the permanent ship lock of Three Gorges Project is the top one in the world. In order to guarantee visitors can quickly pass by the ship lock, Three Gorges Project built vertical ship lift in 2005. Three Gorges ship lift is the largest ship lift in the world. With the help of ship lift, ships only need half an hour to pass by the Three Gorges Dam.