Yalong River’s 23 GW Capacity Fully Committed to Power Supply
China’s Yalong River Basin water-wind-solar integrated base has committed its approximately 23 gigawatts of installed clean energy capacity to peak summer power supply, according to an announcement from SDIC Yalong River Basin Hydropower Development Co., Ltd. on August 1. The move comes as China’s national electricity load repeatedly sets new historical highs, approaching 1.6 billion kilowatts since July, according to the National Energy Administration.
Strategic Energy Reserves
The basin’s cascade hydropower stations have stored 17.77 billion kilowatt-hours of energy through joint operations, an increase of 950 million kilowatt-hours year-over-year, providing substantial water energy reserves for peak grid supply. As Xinhua News Agency reported, the announcement was made by the state-owned enterprise that serves as the sole development entity for the river basin.
Three large regulating reservoirs — Lianghekou, Jinping-I, and Ertan — form the backbone of the system, with a combined storage capacity of 24.9 billion cubic meters and regulating capacity of 14.8 billion cubic meters. This accounts for approximately 51 percent of Sichuan Province’s total large reservoir regulating capacity, according to People’s Daily Online.
Record Performance at Lianghekou
The Lianghekou Hydropower Station, China’s highest-altitude million-kilowatt-class facility, has been performing at record levels. In July, all six of its generating units operated at full capacity, with cumulative power generation up 60 percent year-over-year and a single-day maximum output of 63.99 million kilowatt-hours — both setting new records since commissioning.
The station serves as the “dragon head” regulating reservoir for the basin, coordinating flood control, hydropower peaking, and photovoltaic absorption while keeping the 3-million-kilowatt transmission corridor operating at full capacity.
Ultra-High-Voltage Transmission
Clean energy from the Yalong River is being continuously delivered to the Sichuan-Chongqing region, East China, and Central China via the Jinsu DC and Yahu DC ultra-high-voltage transmission projects. Sichuan’s Yalong River cascade hydropower stations are expected to provide 49.4 billion kilowatt-hours of supply capacity during the peak summer period, an increase of 2.3 billion kilowatt-hours compared to the previous year.
At high-altitude renewable energy facilities above 4,000 meters — including the Kela Phase I, Suorong, and Chabula photovoltaic stations — operations personnel are using intelligent operations platforms and drone inspection systems for around-the-clock monitoring. At the Labashan wind farm, maintenance staff climbed turbines more than 120 times in July alone.
A Growing Clean Energy Hub
The Yalong River Basin water-wind-solar integrated base is China’s first national-level demonstration base of its kind and one of the country’s nine major clean energy bases. According to Guangming Online, the base is planned to reach 78 GW of installed capacity by 2035, making it the world’s largest green clean renewable energy demonstration base.
In December 2025, the Suorong and Chabula photovoltaic stations — each 1 GW — were simultaneously commissioned, bringing the base’s total installed clean energy capacity to nearly 23 GW with approximately 12 GW under construction. As the Yalong River Company noted, these stations employ innovative “pastoral-solar complementary” and “grass-solar complementary” ecological models, raising PV panels about 2 meters to allow yak grazing underneath.
AI-Powered Operations
On July 16, China’s first water-wind-solar integrated intelligent operations large model was officially released in Chengdu. The Yalong River Large Model, as reported by China News Service, uses a multi-agent collaborative architecture to coordinate reservoir groups, wind farms, and PV stations across the entire basin.
The model extends runoff forecast lead time from approximately 10 days to 60 days, improves PV component fault diagnosis accuracy to over 96 percent, and boosts operations efficiency by 50 percent. It is powered by a high-altitude cave-type intelligent computing center using 100 percent clean energy from the basin.
Implications for China’s Energy Transition
Sichuan has experienced its first round of widespread, persistent high temperatures in 2026, with multiple red alerts issued and local temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius. As Sichuan Online reported, the province’s grid has completed 12 key peak-summer power supply projects, all in trial operation by June 30.
The full commitment of the Yalong River basin’s capacity underscores the critical role that large-scale clean energy infrastructure plays in China’s grid stability strategy. As the country’s electricity demand continues to grow alongside its clean energy transition, integrated water-wind-solar bases like the Yalong River project demonstrate how coordinated multi-source energy development can address both reliability and decarbonization goals.
What to Watch
With the base targeting 78 GW of installed capacity by 2035 and the Yalong River Large Model now operational, the basin is positioned to serve as a blueprint for China’s other major clean energy bases. The coming months will reveal how effectively these systems can maintain grid stability through the remainder of the peak summer season and beyond, as China continues to expand its renewable energy footprint.