On June 7, 2022, the Laba Mountain Wind Power Project, the country's first batch large-scale wind power photovoltaic base projects and the landmark project of the Yalong River Basin Water-Wind-Solar Hybrid Green and Clean Renewable Energy Demonstration Base, officially started construction in Dechang County, Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province.

The Laba Mountain Wind Power Project has a combined installation capacity of 192,000 kilowatts and plans to build 60 wind turbines. The turbines will be distributed at the northern and middle sections of the Laba Mountain main ridge and the west side extended branch range along the Yalong River Basin. The Laba Mountain Wind Power Project plans to install its first turbine unit in October 2022 and all turbine units are scheduled to be put into operation in September 2023.

Partial view of a computer illustration of the Laba Mountain Wind Power Project

Construction of the Laba Mountain Wind Power Project indicates the steady progress of the construction of the country's large-scale wind power photovoltaic base projects in Sichuan Province. Since the 14th Five-Year Plan, Sichuan Province has approved a series of wind power projects and the Laba Mountain Wind Power Project is the largest. A project of the country's first batch large-scale wind power photovoltaic base, construction of the Laba Mountain Wind Power Project marks a major move in implementing the decisions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on accelerating the planning and construction of large-scale wind power photovoltaic bases and in carrying out the plans of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee and Sichuan Provincial Government on promoting the high-quality development of green, low carbon and competitive industries, which indicates the new progress of Sichuan province in the new energy development.

The utilization hours of the Laba Mountain wind power is equivalent to 2,612 hours per year. The Laba Mountain Wind Power Project, once completed, will be able to generate annually 501 million kilowatt hours of electricity which will be connected with the main power grid of Sichuan Province and will be able to meet the needs of annual electricity consumption of 210,000 households. The annual electricity generation of the wind power project is equivalent of saving 160,000 tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 400,000 tons, which is of great importance in realizing the energy conservation and emission reduction goals and promoting the coordinated development of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle.

Overall layout plan of the Laba Mountain Wind Power Project

The Laba Mountain Wind Power Project will further promote the construction of the Yalong River Basin Clean Energy Base, one of the nine large clean energy bases of the country, and play an active role in realizing the country's goal of carbon emission peak and carbon neutrality. The Laba Mountain Wind Power Project is the first wind power project to be constructed in the Yalong River Basin Clean Energy Base since the 14th Five-Year Plan. In March 2021, the country's 14th Five-Year Plan and the Long-Range Objectives through the Year 2035 clearly listed the Yalong River Basin Clean Energy Base as one of the nine large clean energy bases in China.

To help the country realize its carbon emission peak and carbon neutrality goals, the Yalong River Hydropower Development Co., Ltd.has put forward its “four-stage”strategy of the basin's new energy and pump-storage development on the basis of its hydropower development. According to national plan, the Yalong River Basin Water-Wind-Solar Hybrid Green and Clean Renewable Energy Demonstration Base has a total installed capacityof over 80 million kilowatts, of which wind power and photovoltaic power generation capacity exceeds 40 million kilowatts while pump-storage power generation exceeds 10 million kilowatts. After completion, it will become one of the largest green and clean renewable energy bases in the world.

For years, the Yalong River Hydropower Development Co., Ltd. relies on its advantages of “one entity developing one river”, multi forms of power generation complementing each other, strong regulating ability and solid foundations, takes the lead in exploring the water-wind-solar power hybrid model, and spares no effort in promoting the construction of the Yalong River Basin Water-Wind-Solar Hybrid Green and Clean Renewable Energy Demonstration Base.

The Yalong River Hydropower Development Co., Ltd. is the large power generation enterprise in Sichuan Province. After the Laba Mountain Wind Power Project is completed, total wind power installation capacity of the company will hit 600,000 kilowatts, bringing its green and clean renewable energy generation capacity to total at nearly 20 million kilowatts. After the construction of the Yalong River Basin Water-Wind-Solar Hybrid Green and Clean Renewable Energy Demonstration Base is completed, it will be able to supply 220 billion kilowatt hours of clean electricity per year, which is equivalent to saving 70 million tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 180 million tons per year. The constant supply of the Yalong River Basin clean electricity will help build the “clean, low carbon, safe and highly efficient” modern energy system and make contributions to realizing the country's carbon emission peak and carbon neutrality goals.

Construction of the Laba Mountain Wind Power Project will give further push to rural vitalization in the ethnic minority regions and promote local social-economic development. Liangshan Prefecture is the largest wind power base in Sichuan Province and also a major clean energy industry base in Southwest China. A landmark project in accelerated development of wind power in Liangshan Prefecture, the construction of the Laba Mountain Wind Power Project marks a new step forward in the construction of the national level clean energy industry base in the prefecture. Construction of the project will give a strong push to local industry development and social progress and become an important economic growth engine, which is of special importance in consolidating the achievements of poverty reduction and promoting rural vitalization.

With a total investment of over 1.5 billion yuan, the Laba Mountain Wind Power Project will contribute about 60 million yuan in taxes and fees to Liangshan Prefecture during its construction and create more than 1,000 jobs for the prefecture. In the meantime, it will provide training to the employed and equip a large group of local people with relevant skills. After the project is put into operation, it will contribute about 40 million yuan per year in taxes and fees to Liangshan Prefecture.

Intelligent construction will be highlighted in building a new generation of full-life cycle digital intelligent and high-altitude mountain wind farms.

Relying on the innovative management model of “the special quality of the Laba Mountain wind power equipment” and using wind turbine equipment as the main breakthrough point of intelligence, the Yalong River Hydropower Development Co., Ltd. spares no effort in building a new generation of full-life cycle digital intelligent and high altitude mountain wind farms.

Based on the innovation and application of the closed-loop control concept on the basis of the cloud-edge synergy mode, the Laba Mountain Wind Farm will maximize the potential of the power generation units and strive to build a new generation of wind power intelligent control system to increase the power generation by more than 5%; meanwhile, amulti-dimensional assessment of turbine unit conditions is carried out to provide the best decision-making solutions for the operation and maintenance of wind farm units, and through the multi-angle control of wake, interval crossing, sector, rain erosion and service life extension, etc., to reach a balance between power generation and unit conditions.In the meantime, through data-driven intelligent operation-maintenance and optimized operation management of the wind farms, passive operation-maintenance can be upgraded to active operation-maintenance and even further to appointed operation-maintenance. Through the algorithm model and the closed-loop mechanism of wind farm management and control, it is expected that operation of the wind farms can be unattended. The creating of higher-quality and more intelligent wind turbine equipment will be able to provide core support for the project to become a world-class wind farm with advanced technology, intelligent operation and maintenance, grid-friendly and ecological friendly features.

The company is determined to build the Laba Mountain Wind Power Project into a “model project” and “first class project” through high standard and high quality construction. The Laba Mountain Wind Power Project will play a fundamental, guiding and pivotal role in construction of the follow-up new energy projects in the Yalong River Basin.

The Laba Mountain project has a short construction period and is located in a high mountain and deep canyon area. The overall landform of the area consists of mainly high mountains, hills and deep canyon, with a wide gap of altitudes. The Laba Mountain Wind Farm will have 60 fans, the impeller diameter is 172 meters,the tower is 110 meters high and the construction road stretches for more than 80 kilometers, which create great difficulties for the transportation and installation of mechanical and electrical equipment, construction materials and equipment. At the same time, the site area is high in altitude and is greatly affected by bad weather, which requires high reliability of equipment. The open air construction environment and most sites located in forest areas create great pressure for forest fire prevention and control.

Construction site of the Laba Mountain Wind Power Project

Yalong River Hydropower Development Co., Ltd. experiments and practices innovative mechanism for project management and carries out a complete general contracting model of design and construction. Project construction adopts the look-through management mode, is devoted to building a whole process quality management system for the general contracting of the wind power project, and opens a new chapter for quality management and innovative development of wind power project general contracting.

In the meantime, Yalong River Hydropower Development Co., Ltd. also actively explores the way to build a safety supervision and management system that covers a double-prevention mechanism of risk management-control and hidden problem detecting-solving, implementation of production safety criteria, and enhancing production safety through science and technology and through the fostering of safety culture. The company also launches work campaigns to further boost the enthusiasm and innovative thinking of all the project constructors and encourages all employees to work whole-heartedly to build the Laba Mountain Wind Power Project into a green, low carbon, safe and highly efficient model project.

Qi Ningchun, Chairman of the Yalong River Hydropower Development Co., Ltd., said that as one of the country's important electric power enterprises, Yalong River Hydropower Development Co., Ltd. always considers it its top responsibility to develop clean energy and guarantee energy security and stable supply, plays its role as a main force of energy development, and firmly implements the country's new energy security strategy featuring “Four Reforms and One Coopertion”. Yalong River Hydropower Development Co., Ltd. will rely on its unique advantage of “one entity developing one river” and follow the principle of “unified planning but implementation step by step” to accelerate its pace in promoting the development of the Yalong River Basin Water-Wind-Solar Hybrid Green and Clean Renewable Energy Demonstration Base and to make active contributions to the building of the country's new type power system, and play an important role in promoting the social-economic development of Sichuan Province and the construction of a beautiful Sichuan. In the meantime, the company will also build the clean energy development of the Yalong River Basin into a “green engine” that drives the fast economic development of the ethnic minority region, gives top priority to “benefit people” and “promote common prosperity through high quality development”, and constantly explores new benefit-sharing model of renewable energy development so as to assist the region which has got rid of poverty to develop toward overall prosperity.

Wind power project already built by Yalong River Hydropower in Dechang