World's tallest dam is taller than 100-storey building, set to power 30 lakh homes, it's worth Rs..., located in...

China has achieved another big success in its Suwalong (Suangjiangkou) Hydropower Project, which is located in the Tibet region under Chinese control. Starting from May 1, water has begun to fill the dam for the first time. This marks a major step towards the project becoming fully operational. Once complete, this dam will be the tallest in the world.

The hydropower project, which began construction about ten years ago, has cost China around 36 billion yuan (approximately 4.9 billion US dollars). Now, after nearly a decade of development, the process of water filling has finally started, bringing the dam closer to completion.

World's Tallest Dam
According to the South China Morning Post, this dam will serve two main purposes: generating electricity and controlling floods. The project includes the dam itself, a power generation system, and flood control structures. It is being built on the Dadu River, which flows from the eastern Tibetan Plateau into the Sichuan Basin.

Once completed, the dam will reach a height of 315 metres (1,033 feet), making it taller than a 100-storey skyscraper. This height will surpass the current tallest dam in the world — Jinping-I Dam, by 10 metres, officially making Suwalong the highest dam on the planet.

Power China, the company behind the project, reported that after the first stage of water filling, the water level has reached 2,344 metres, 80 metres above the river level. The dam has a total water storage capacity of 110 million cubic metres, which is eight times more than the famous West Lake in Hangzhou.

How Much Electricity Will It Generate?
The company stated that once the dam becomes fully operational, it will have a power generation capacity of 2,000 megawatts. This means it will be able to produce more than 7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year — enough to meet the annual electricity needs of over 3 million households. This project will also help China reduce its coal usage by around 2.96 million tonnes per year.

China has a long history of building large dams. Since the 1950s, the country has built more than 22,000 dams that are over 15 metres tall, nearly half of all such dams in the world. Most of these are located in the southwestern part of the country, on rivers such as the Lancang, Yangtze, and Jinsha. These dams are mainly used for electricity generation, flood control, and irrigation.