Water at the Baihetan Hydropower Station, the world's largest hydropower plant under construction, reaches the normal level of 825 meters for the first time, according to chinanews.com on Tuesday.

Located on the Jinsha River, the upper section of the Yangtze River, in southwest China, the Baihetan Hydropower Station is currently the world's largest and most complex hydropower project under construction.

With 16 hydroelectric generating units, the dam has a capacity of 16 million kilowatt hours (kWh), following the world's largest Three Gorges Dam project in central China's Hubei Province.

The dam is an ultra-high double-curvature arch dam with a maximum height of 289 meters and an arc length of 709 meters.

The total storage capacity of the reservoir is about 20.6 billion cubic meters, which gives 16.5 million tonnes of water pressure to the dam, an equivalent thrust would be 15,000 Long March-5 rockets lifting off.

A specially blended cement that releases minimum heat is being used to build Baihetan to reduce the risk of the thermal cracking.

Tens of thousands of sensors have been installed throughout the body of the dam, comprehensively reflecting the temperature, pressure, environment and progress of the concrete construction in real time. The temperature of the dam can be maintained to around 27 degree Celsius, ensuring the quality of the concrete.

The power generated by Baihetan is estimated to save 19.68 million tonnes of standard coal per year, the equivalent to reducing 51.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide – making a significant contribution to China's goal to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060.