A multi-year, multibillion-dollar undertaking on China’s Jinsha River has achieved several “firsts” for the hydropower sector, earning POWER’s highest honor thanks to its development, design, and importance to the power generation industry. It also is a model in China’s push for more clean and sustainable energy.

China already was the global leader in hydropower generation before Xi Jinping, the country’s president, in 2020 announced a plan for the world’s most populous country to become carbon neutral by 2060. That strategy, backed by government policies in support of renewable energy as part of the overall plan to increase the electricity supply for China’s nearly 1.5 billion people, again put the spotlight on the country’s massive hydropower projects. China has more than quadrupled its hydroelectric power generation capacity since 2000; according to Global Data, a UK-based data analytics and consulting group, the country’s cumulative installed capacity of its hydropower plants was just shy of 380 GW as of year-end 2021, growing at a rate of about 2.6% year-over-year.…

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