Ertan Dam

The Ertan Dam is located on Yalong, the longest tributary of the upper Yangtze River, in the circles Miyi and Yanbian prefecture-level city of Panzhihua in Sichuan Province.

The dam has a concrete arch dam as a shut-off. She is lying with its height of 240 or 245 m (there are different information ) about in point 15 of the highest dams of the earth.

It was built to produce hydroelectricity. The Ertan hydropower plant has a capacity of 3300 MW and is housed in an underground cavern. The cavern is their dimensions length 280 m, width 25.5 m, height 65 m, the largest in Asia.

The electric power is generated by six generators per 550 MW. In the first year of operation, the power plant has generated 3.9 billion kWh. It is according to the average annual electricity generation is the most powerful hydroelectric power plant in China.

The construction work was awarded to a German - Chinese joint venture company under the leadership of Philipp Holzmann. Also, were involved: Hochtief, Changjiang Gezhouba Engineering Bureau of China and Geoconsult from Austria for the geotechnical consulting. The total construction costs amounted to 3.4 billion U.S. dollars.

On Yalong should still four more hydropower plants are built with a total capacity of 9,050 MW, including the Lianghekou Dam, Jinping I and Jinping II

The data in the table are partly uncertain or specified differently in different sources.