Guwahati: China has approved the construction of the world’s largest hydropower dam in the eastern rim of the Tibetan plateau, and the power plant is likely to come up north of Gelling village in Arunachal Pradesh.
The dam, which will be located in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo river, would produce 300 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity annually.
A section of the Yarlung Zangbo falls a dramatic 2,000 metres within a short span of 50 km in the eastern rim of the Tibetan plateau, offering huge hydropower potential as well as huge engineering challenges.
It enters India near the village of Gelling in Upper Siang district in Arunachal Pradesh as the Siang river. Subsequently, it flows southwest through the Assam Valley as the Brahmaputra and south through Bangladesh as the Jamuna.
According to the reports Power Construction Corp of China, the new hydro-power dam would be three times bigger than the Three Gorges Dam, currently the world’s largest, in central China.
At present, the Three Gorges Dam produces around 88.2 billion kWh annually.
The new 300 billion kWh hydro-power project will play a major role in meeting China’s carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, the Power Construction Corp of China officials claimed.
The new hydro-power project would boost industrial growth in eastern Tibet, and would create huge job opportunities.
The outlay for building the hydro-power dam, including resettling of the people it would displace is expected to be around $110 billion.
The Chinese authorities have not indicated how many people the Tibet project would displace and how it would affect the local ecosystem, one of the richest and most diverse on the plateau.
The new hydro-power project is likely to have a major impact on the environment or on downstream water supplies in Assam and Bangladesh.
India and Bangladesh have already raised concerns about the new hydro-power as it is likely to alter the local ecology in eastern Tibet and downstream.
