Company News
Baihetan hydropower station went into operation, TISCO products made contributions

By Shen Wenli UpDate 2021-07-13

The first two generating units of the Baihetan hydropower station went into operation as per schedule on June 28th. The running of the worldwide biggest station and the most advanced hydropower station, which is independently researched, designed and manufactured by China, marking a new era of “Million KW” scale in global hydropower industry. On this occasion, TISCO received thanks letter from the Three Gorges Corporation --- the owner of the station, as well as Harbin Electric Group and Dongfang Electric Group --- the equipment suppliers to the project. They praised the high standard and high quality products and services offered by TISCO, and recognized TISCO’s outstanding contribution to the successful operation of the generating units.

Baihetan hydropower station is one of the national key projects that underpin China’s strategy of power transmission from west to east and the country’s clean, low carbon, safe and efficient energy system. It will be the second largest hydropower station in the world upon completion, second only to the Three Gorges Dam project in Hubei Province of China. The operation of the first two generators is a milestone in the world hydroelectric history. President Xi Jinping extends his congratulations and Premier Li Keqiang makes comments on this event, reflecting the central government’s deep care to the cause of clean energy, the construction of key projects, and the development of high-end facilities manufacturing.

Back to 2012, TISCO had started the preparation work for Baihetan hydropower station project, which were stressed by high-level management of the company. The sales department actively cooperated with production units and technology department to offer “one-stop” solution to the project owner. By present, several TISCO products including the high grade steel for magnetic yoke and pole, high grade silicon steel, and stainless steel hydroelectric plate, have been manufactured into some key parts of the station, installing a TISCO core to the grand project.

The steel for magnetic yoke and pole, a vital material to motor rotator, extremely sophisticated in strength, toughness, accuracy and magnetism, used to be a “bottleneck” to China’s steel material industry and had to be imported from overseas market. Facing the task of supplying such material for the biggest rotator in the world, TISCO R&D team embraced the tremendous pressure and challenges. They did numerous modifications and trials and tackled many technical difficulties before they finally found the best composition and met the designed requirements. With the incredible flatness of less than 1mm/m, TISCO’s high grade magnetic steels replaced imported material.

The high grade silicon steel is mainly used to manufacture stators of generators. Strict requirements on technical indexes like total loss, anisotropy, coating, bending, roughness, lamination factor, and mechanical properties have made the production and quality control of this material very difficult. TISCO team made concrete effort to optimize the whole production process, so as to be able to produce superior material that outperforms its kind both home and abroad in terms of magnetism, surface quality, coating performance and etc. and also outperforms the steels applied in the famous Three Gorges Dam project.

The stainless steel hydroelectric plate is mainly used to build water systems and draft tubes of the turbines. It is supposed to endure long-time flush of sludge, sand and water. TISCO adopts special process control methods to achieve high strength, high toughness, excellent weldability, as well as outstripping hardness and yield strength far above national standard, offering sustainable support to the construction of the century project.

In recent years, TISCO has always persisted in independent innovation, challenged limits, and achieved great breakthrough in the research and development of magnetic material for giant hydro-electric power station. Making new records one after another, the company has left its foot prints in the construction of pillar sectors and key projects of China. After reorganization with China Baowu, TISCO speeds up to joining “the high quality steel eco-system” of China Baowu, to quickly realize the coordination effect and activate the company’s vitality. Looking forward, TISCO will continue to shoulder the mission of serving the country, drive the development with innovation, and make more contribution to the follow-up construction of Baihetan hydropower station and China’s hydropower causes.