Qingyuan Pumped Storage Power Station

Four 320MW vertical-shaft single-stage Francis-type reversible machines designed to provide the power system’s load-following, frequency modulation, synchronous condenser operation, emergency reserves and black-start backups.

As one of the backbone energy projects in Guangdong and a first-class large-scale power development listed in China’s Eleventh Five Year Plan, this station’s four generators operate at a designed average head of 470m, with a largest unit size of its kind in China – generating 2,331GWh per year.

The project represented a significant technological steps forward, involving 34 national technical patents and more than 20 certificates for technical progress. It also won awards for China’s Quality Electric Power Project, National Quality Project for Water-Soil Conservation and Eco-System Civilization, China’s Quality Project for Plant Erection Works (National Star Project for Plant Erection Works) and the National Gold Medal for Investigation and Design for Water Conservancy and Hydropower Projects.

Technical innovation
The plant used a new spillway design for both reservoir works, featuring swirl-initiating concrete buttresses arranged at the circular weir lip of a round spilling shaft followed by a spilling tunnel. The submerged spilling flow starts swirling at the curved buttresses. The centrifugal circular flow swirls down, pressing against the shaft wall with an ever-present air cavity at the center, sufficiently aerated all the way. This results in minimal negative pressures on the weir and shaft wall, minimal cavitation pittings, higher energy dissipation efficiency, and slower tunnel flow.