(ECNS) -- Construction began Friday on the world’s largest hydro-photovoltaic complementary power plant project, the Kela photovoltaic power station, located on the Yalong River in southwest China’s Sichuan Province.
With an installed capacity of one million kilowatts, the project will be the hydro-photovoltaic hybrid power station with the largest installed capacity at the highest altitude in the world.
The Kela photovoltaic power station is located in Yajiang County at an altitude of 4,000 to 4,600 meters above sea level in the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province.
It covers an area of about 16 square kilometers and has more than two million photovoltaic modules.
Total investment in the power station is 5.3 billion yuan (about $791 million).
It links to the Lianghekou Hydropower Station, which was connected to the grid in March this year through a 500 kV transmission line.
The project is expected to provide two billion kWh of clean power, equivalent to saving over 600,000 metric tons of standard coal, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by over 1.6 million metric tons, according to the Yalong River branch of the State Development & Investment Corp., Ltd.