China's First 10-Gigawatt-Level "Desert-Gobi-Wasteland" Base Supporting Coal Power Project Achieves Key Progress

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 26, according to China Three Gorges Corporation, all four indirect cooling towers of the 4-million-kilowatt supporting coal power project at the Kubuqi Central-Northern New Energy Base in Dalad Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, have been topped out. The project plans to build four 1-million-kilowatt indirect air-cooled high-efficiency ultra-supercritical coal-fired units. Currently, the main powerhouses, boilers, indirect cooling towers, and equipment installation for the four units are being advanced in parallel. China Three Gorges Corporation disclosed in August that the project has entered its peak construction period, with more than 4,000 on-site construction and management personnel.

The project adopts a "four-tower-in-one" layout scheme integrating the indirect cooling tower, chimney, desulfurization absorption tower, and wastewater concentration tower, eliminating the standalone chimney, with the indirect cooling tower simultaneously performing circulating water cooling and clean flue gas emission after desulfurization. The four units adopt indirect air cooling, high-efficiency ultra-supercritical power generation, and ultra-low emission technologies, and are equipped with electrochemical energy storage for frequency regulation and peak shaving. China Three Gorges Corporation has listed it as one of the world's first gigawatt-level "coal power–electrochemical energy storage" coupled frequency regulation and peak shaving demonstration projects.

The coal power project has completed multiple major construction and equipment installation milestones this year. On March 26, the first large plate girder of Unit 2's boiler was hoisted into place, after which the boiler's main steel structure passed overall acceptance and transitioned to heating surface installation; in August, Unit 2's main powerhouse completed roof waterproofing, and the civil engineering works transitioned to the installation phase for steam turbines, generators, and other equipment. Subsequently, Unit 2's 390-ton generator stator was hoisted into place in a single lift, providing construction conditions for generator assembly and alignment commissioning of core components.

The Kubuqi Central-Northern New Energy Base is planned to build 4 million kilowatts of wind power, 8 million kilowatts of photovoltaic power, 4 million kilowatts of supporting coal power, and 200,000 kilowatts of concentrated solar power, and is equipped with no less than 5 million kilowatt-hours of new electrochemical energy storage. Among these, the first and second phases of photovoltaic power, totaling 2 million kilowatts, have been connected to the grid, and the base also plans to build 24 booster stations. In September 2026, the base's supporting synchronous condenser and electrochemical energy storage project launched bidding for survey and preliminary design, with a planned configuration of 25 units of 50 Mvar synchronous condensers.

The base's power transmission project is also under simultaneous construction. The Dalad ±800 kV converter station and the Dalad 1,000 kV substation have both entered the engineering construction phase. The two projects respectively undertake the tasks of DC transmission of clean energy from western Inner Mongolia and support for the North China ultra-high-voltage AC grid, jointly forming important nodes of the power transmission corridor from western Inner Mongolia to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. After the base is fully completed, it is planned to transmit approximately 40 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.