Longtan Dam

Construction

The dam was planned in the 1950s, but preliminary construction (roads, bridges, river diversion) did not begin until the 1940s. Formal construction began on the project July 1, 2001, and the river was diverted by November 2003. A total of 20,000,000 m³ (706,293,334 ft³) of material were excavated from the dam site. Impounding of the 27,270,000,000 m³ (22,108,149 acre⋅ft) reservoir began in 2006, and the dam's first of three operational hydroelectric generating units was testing May 2007. In 2009, the last generator became operational and the installed capacity increased to 6,426 MW, its annual generation is estimated at 18.7 TWh.

A pair of tunnels diverted the river around the site of the dam, during construction.