China launches 12 comprehensive pilot projects for smart dam construction

China has launched 12 comprehensive pilot projects for smart dam construction, as announced at the ongoing 28th International Commission on Large Dams Congress, which kicked off Wednesday in Chengdu City, northwest China's Sichuan Province.

The pilot projects underscore China's commitment to integrating cutting-edge technologies into dam engineering and water resource management.

At the Qingyuan Pumped Storage Power Station in northeast China's Liaoning Province, a three-dimensional real-life modeling system provides a clear visualization of the station's underground space - effectively equipping the project with a "perspective eye" to monitor subsurface conditions.

Meanwhile, the Dashixia Water Control Project in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is accelerating its construction. The project features the world's tallest concrete face rockfill dam, standing at 247 meters. It employs an innovative intelligent management system for dam filling operations, allowing real-time monitoring of rolling paths, compaction frequency, and other key data.

The Baihetan Hydropower Station - currently the world's second-largest hydropower project - has a dam that reaches 289 meters in height. During its construction, engineers embedded more than 100,000 sensors into the dam structure. These sensors function like "nerve endings," continuously detecting changes in stress and temperature to ensure structural safety and operational stability.

As of the end of 2024, China had built more than 94,000 dams, ranking first in the world in both number and installed capacity. The country's hydropower installed capacity reached 436 million kilowatts, with an annual power generation of 1.42 trillion kilowatt-hours, accounting for 57 percent of its total renewable energy generation.

"China is leading the world in not just the installation rate of hydropower, but very importantly also with pump storage hydro," said Anton-Louis Olivier, chair of board of the International Hydropower Association.

China launches 12 comprehensive pilot projects for smart dam construction

China's Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwest on Sunday, sending three astronauts to its orbiting space station.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, lifted off from the launch site at 23:08 Beijing Time (15:08 GMT).

The crew members consist of mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying, who is also the first astronaut from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

In another notable first, one of the crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

After entering orbit, the Shenzhou-23 spaceship will perform a fast automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the space station core module Tianhe, forming a combination of three modules and three spacecraft.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.

China launches Shenzhou-23 manned spaceship