Three Gorges Dam ship locks set new throughput record in January

By Yan Wanqin, Yichang International Communication Studio

The five-tier ship locks at the Three Gorges Dam set a new monthly throughput record in January. 

 

The Three Gorges Navigation Authority said the world’s largest hydropower project handled 13.23 million tons of throughput last month, a year-on-year increase of 4.42 percent. This is the highest recorded period since the opening of the Three Gorges locks.

 

Ships can travel through the Three Gorges Dam via two five-tier ship locks, which have a maximum vessel size of 10,000 tons and can be passed through in 2.5 hours. The Dam also has a ship lift, which can raise/lower a 3,000-tonne ship directly to climb/descend the 100-meter water level difference.  

 

Combining both channels, the throughput of the Dam totaled 13.36 million tons in January, an increase of 2.89 percent year on year.

 

Ships pass through one of the two five-tier ship locks of the Three Gorges Dam.

 

A bird-view of the ship locks. Picture by Zheng Jiayu.

 

During the Spring Festival holiday from January 21 through 27, the shipping throughput of the Three Gorges Dam was 3.056 million tons, an increase of 13.61 percent year-on-year. Among them, 3.047 million tons were passed through the Three Gorges locks, an increase of 14.2 percent year-on-year.

 

The Three Gorges project is a multi-functional water-control system, consisting of a 2,309-meter-long and 185-meter-high dam, a pair of five-tier ship locks, and 34 turbo-generators with a combined generating capacity of 22.5 million kilowatts.