Dongfeng Dam

The Dongfeng Dam is an arch dam on the Wu River 65 km northwest of Qingzhen in Guizhou Province, China. The primary purpose of the dam is hydroelectric power generation and it supports a 570 MW power station. Construction on the dam began in 1989 and the first generator was operational in 1994, the last in 1995. The generators were up-rated between 2004 and 2005; bringing their capacity from 170 MW each to 190 MW.

Design and operation
The Dongfeng is a 162 m tall and 254 m long parabola-shaped arch dam. The dam is 6 m thick at its crest and 25 m at its base. It sits at the base of a catchment area covering 1816 km2. The total reservoir capacity is 1025000000 m3 while 491000000 m3 is for regulating. At the reservoir's normal elevation of 970 m above sea level, the reservoir capacity is 864000000 m3. The dam has several discharge facilities; three spillway gates near the crest, three intermediate orifice openings, one chute spillway on the left bank and beside it, one spillway tunnel. The maximum discharge capacity of the spillways is 2565 m3/s while all openings, including the power station tailrace, can discharge 12369 m3/s. The power station is located underground on the right bank of the dam. The intake releases water to three headrace tunnels which transfer into penstocks and supply each of the 190 MW Francis turbine-generators. Water is discharged back into the river via one tailrace tunnel.