Recently, the world's tallest concrete-faced rockfill dam (CFRD)—the dam of the Lawa Hydropower Station, designed and constructed byPower Construction Corporation of China (POWERCHINA)—achieved a “double breakthrough”: the filling height exceeded 200 m, and the total fill volume surpassed 15 million m³.

The Lawa Hydropower Station is a key component of the upper Jinsha River clean energy base, one of the nine major clean energy bases prioritized under China’s 14th Five-Year Plan. With a dam height of 239 m and a crest elevation of 2,709 m, the project involves nearly 17 million m³ of fill, making it the tallest CFRD currently under construction worldwide.

Located in a deep-cut plateau canyon, the dam site presents extreme challenges including high filling intensity, tight construction schedules, high seismic intensity, complex quality control, significant interference from concurrent operations, and difficulties in material supply from quarries. The construction of the dam embankment is exceptionally demanding, with high technical requirements.

Since the commencement of the project, the team has prioritized strategic planning, continuously optimizing construction schemes through a combination of annual, phased, and specialized plans. A vast operation area of over 82,000 m² has been developed, enabling an integrated smart construction model that includes dam filling, grouting, material transportation, and quarry excavation. Unmanned roller fleets have been systematically applied throughout the entire dam filling process. In a pioneering move, large-scale use of new energy dump trucks has been introduced in the cold plateau environment for dam material transport—around 90 such vehicles have been deployed, supported by three newly built new energy charging and swapping stations. This sets a replicable benchmark for similar world-class plateau hydropower projects.

With a total installed capacity of 2 million kw, the Lawa Hydropower Station is expected to generate 8.224 billion kWh of clean electricity annually upon completion, equivalent to saving approximately 2.8 million tons of standard coal and reducing emissions of CO₂, SO₂, and particulate matter by around 9.1 million tons.