The Panjiakou Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the

Luan River The Luan River (, formerly known as ''Lei Shui'', or ''Ru Shui'') is a river in China. River The river flows northwards from its source in the province of Hebei into the province of Inner Mongolia, and then flows southeast back into Hebei to its m ...

in Qianxi County,

Hebei Province Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and 0 ...

, China. The primary purpose of the dam is to provide water for the cities of

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

and

Tangshan Tangshan () is a coastal, industrial prefecture-level city in the northeast of Hebei province. It is located in the eastern part of Hebei Province and the northeastern part of the North China Plain. It is located in the central area of the Boha ...

, located to the south. The dam also provides flood control and its power plant has an installed capacity of 420 MW which includes a 270 MW

pumped storage Pumping may refer to: * The operation of a pump, for moving a liquid from one location to another **The use of a breast pump for extraction of milk * Pumping (audio), a creative misuse of dynamic range compression * Pumping (computer systems), th ...

power station.

Background

Construction on the first stage of the project began in 1975 and the single 150 MW generator was operational in 1981. In 1984, the first stage was complete and in the same year, construction on the second stage began. This consisted of the lower reservoir and pump-generators for the pumped storage power station. In 1989, the lower reservoir began to impound and in 1993, the pump-generators were operational. Water supplied by the dam is used for industrial, agricultural and municipal needs in Tianjin and Tangshan. When the Panjiakou Reservoir was filled, it submerged the town of Panjiakou under of water. Located in the hills above the town is a section of the

Great Wall The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic groups ...

, part of which was submerged as well. The submerged section ran through Panjiakou pass and a portion can be seen on a small island off the reservoir's edge at , particularly during droughts when the reservoir holds less water. The scenery around the reservoir is a popular tourist destination and with the surrounding terrain, it is often called "Qianxi Little Three Gorges".

Design and operation

The Panjiakou Dam is a tall and concrete gravity dam. The dam's reservoir has a capacity of and surface area of . Of the reservoir's capacity, is active (or "useful") for power generation and water supply. The dam sits at the head of a

catchment area In human geography, a catchment area is the area from which a location, such as a city, service or institution, attracts a population that uses its services and economic opportunities. Catchment areas may be defined based on from where people are ...

which constitutes 75 percent of the Luan River basin. The dam's

spillway A spillway is a structure used to provide the controlled release of water downstream from a dam or levee, typically into the riverbed of the dammed river itself. In the United Kingdom, they may be known as overflow channels. Spillways ensure th ...

is located on its left face and contains 18

floodgate Floodgates, also called stop gates, are adjustable gates used to control water flow in flood barriers, reservoir, river, stream, or levee systems. They may be designed to set spillway crest heights in dams, to adjust flow rates in sluices a ...

s. It has a maximum discharge capacity of . To the right of the spillway is the power house which contains one 150 MW Francis turbine generator and three 90 MW reversible Francis turbine pump generators. Located downstream is the lower reservoir dam. It is a gravity type and has a height of and length of . It creates the lower reservoir with a storage capacity of of which can be used for pumped storage power generation. When the

capability is used, the Panjiakou Reservoir serves as the upper reservoir and water is released down to the three pump generators for power production. It is subsequently discharged into the lower reservoir. This occurs during periods of high peak power demand. When power demand is low, usually at night when electricity is cheaper, the turbines of the pump generators reverse and pump water back into the upper reservoir. This process repeats as needed. A small power plant on the lower reservoir dam contains two 5 MW

Kaplan turbine The Kaplan turbine is a propeller-type water turbine which has adjustable blades. It was developed in 1913 by Austrian professor Viktor Kaplan, who combined automatically adjusted propeller blades with automatically adjusted wicket gates to ach ...

bulb-generators.

References

{{reflist Dams completed in 1981 Energy infrastructure completed in 1981 Energy infrastructure completed in 1983 Dams in China Hydroelectric power stations in Hebei Gravity dams Pumped-storage hydroelectric power stations in China

Background

Design and operation

See also

References