Chinese Premier Li Qiang attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the super hydroelectric dam with a capacity 3 times that of the Three Gorges Dam in Nyingchi City, Tibet Autonomous Region, southwestern China on July 19.
The groundbreaking ceremony took place at the Mainling hydropower dam site in Nyingchi.
According to Xinhua News Agency, in addition to Chinese officials, the groundbreaking ceremony was attended by members of the professional advisory committee on the construction of the hydropower project, as well as representatives of local people.
The Yarlung Zangbo super dam project includes five terraced hydropower plants, with a total estimated investment of 1.2 trillion yuan (about 167.8 billion USD).
The project mainly provides electricity to outside consumers, while meeting the electricity needs of Tibet, also according to Xinhua.
The construction of the hydroelectric dam took place in the Yarlung Zangbo c range where the river poured down from an altitude of 2,000 m on a 50 km long stretch of the river. This area is home to a national nature reserve and is one of China's top biodiversity hotspots.
China first announced plans to build a hydroelectric dam on the Yarlung Zangbo River in 2020 according to a 5-year plan, in a strategy to exploit the hydropower potential of the Tibet Plateau. The construction plan for this super dam was approved in December last year.
The Yarlung Zangbo River hydropower project is said to be the world's largest, with an estimated annual capacity of 300 billion kilowatt hours, three times the capacity of the Three Gorges Dam.
The Yarlung Zangbo River is known as Brahmaputra when it flows south into the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam and into Bangladesh.
Along with the groundbreaking ceremony for the Yarlung Zangbo River hydropower dam, the opening ceremony of China Yajiang Group took place in Beijing on the same day to ensure smooth construction and operation progress of the hydropower project.
