Key technologies for the Baihetan Hydropower Station’s mega‑scale hub project have been awarded the First Class National Award for Scientific and Technological Progress.

On the morning of July 8, the National Science and Technology Awards Conference, the Academician Conference of the Two Academies, and the 11th National Congress of the China Association for Science and Technology were held in Beijing. The project "Key Technologies of the Giant Hub Engineering of Baihetan Hydropower Station," led by the China Three Gorges Corporation, won the First Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award for 2025.

The Baihetan Hydropower Station hub engineering consists of a 300-meter-class concrete double-curved arch dam, flood discharge and energy dissipation facilities, and underground powerhouses on both the left and right banks. The China Three Gorges Corporation, addressing unprecedented technical challenges in the construction of the hub engineering, collaborated with multiple units in the hydropower industry chain to overcome difficulties. They successfully solved three world-class core technical challenges: the most asymmetric ultra-high arch dam, the largest-scale underground powerhouse cavern group, and the most asymmetric flood discharge energy dissipation. They achieved 12 world-firsts in hub engineering, made significant breakthroughs in core technologies for hydropower engineering construction, and provided solid technical reserves and important engineering references for subsequent hydropower development projects in the industry.

As a national major project ensuring national energy security and flood control safety in the river basin, Baihetan Hydropower Station has a total installed capacity of 16 million kilowatts, making it the second-largest hydropower station in the world. Its annual average power generation is 62.443 billion kilowatt-hours, with a flood control storage capacity of 7.5 billion cubic meters. Together with Wudongde Hydropower Station, Xiluodu Hydropower Station, Xiangjiaba Hydropower Station, the Three Gorges Project, and Gezhouba Hydropower Station, it forms the world's largest clean energy corridor.

Baihetan Hydropower Station has won the highest award for engineering projects, the "FIDIC Outstanding Project Award," from the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC), and was selected as one of the "Global Top Ten Engineering Achievements" of the year by the journal Engineering organized by the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Over the past 30 years, the China Three Gorges Corporation has advanced from the Three Gorges Project, collaborating with upstream and downstream industry chains to overcome challenges, scale new technological heights, and achieve continuous innovation and independent control in areas ranging from engineering design and construction management to key materials and intelligent operation and maintenance. Through the research and application of new materials, new technologies, and new standards, it has developed core technologies for large-scale hydropower construction and operation, while driving the development of the entire industry chain and forging a path of distinctive innovation.

This award marks another achievement for the China Three Gorges Corporation, following the "Three Gorges Hub Engineering" project, which won the Special Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award in 2019, and the "Complete Technology and Equipment for Safe and Efficient Offshore Wind Power Development and Industrialization" project, which won the First Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award in 2023. Once again, the corporation has been honored as the leading unit with the First Prize or higher of the National Science and Technology Progress Award.