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View of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, China
Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, China

The Three Gorges Dam (simplified Chinese: 三峡大坝; traditional Chinese: 三峽大壩; pinyin: Sānxiá Dàbà) is a hydroelectric gravity dam that spans the Yangtze River near Sandouping in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, central China, downstream of the Three Gorges. The world's largest power station by installed capacity (22,500 MW), the Three Gorges Dam generates 95±20 TWh of electricity per year on average, depending on the amount of precipitation in the river basin. After the extensive monsoon rainfalls of 2020, the dam's produced nearly 112 TWh in a year, breaking the previous world record of ~103 TWh set by Itaipu Dam in 2016.

The dam's body was completed in 2006; the power plant became fully operational in 2012, when the last of the main water turbines in the underground plant began production. The last major component of the project, the ship lift, was completed in 2015. (Full article...)