The project is a key component of the government's campaign to develop the western regions and to bring electricity to the economically developed, but energy-demanding eastern and coastal areas.

The water storage would enable the project to begin generating next May, two months ahead of schedule, said Dai Bo, general manager of Longtan Hydropower Development Co. of China Datang Corporation (CDT).

It would take eight to 18 days to raise the water level in the reservoir from 215 to 290.5 meters, and the level would rise to 375 meters in August 2009, said Zhong Jun, chairman of Longtan Hydropower Development, in charge of the water storage process.

The process would have no effect further down the Pearl River because another downstream hydropower project would increase the water discharge, sad deputy general manager Long Xianjin.

Chu Yueting, another general manager, said the company had worked out countermeasures to possible problems, including earthquakes, silting and pollution.

Located in northwest Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the Longtan project lies on the Honghe River, a major tributary of the Pearl River. It is China's third largest after the Three Gorges Project on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and Xiluodu hydropower project on Jinsha River, a tributary of the Yangtze.

An investment of 30 billion yuan (3.75 billion U.S. dollars) from China Datang Corporation (CDT) was used to build the 216.5-meter-high dam, a ship lock and an underground generating house with nine turbo-generators with a total possible production of 6.3 million kw.

Construction began in July 2001 and the project is scheduled to finish in 2009, with the first three generators in operation in May 2007. It will be capable of generating 18.7 billion kw/hour of electricity annually once completed.

Half of the power from the project would be transmitted to Guangdong, to the east of Guangxi, said Dai Bo.

The project will also help in flood control and improving conditions for shipping, and in combating the salt tide that has been plaguing water usage in cities on the Pearl River Delta.

More than 80,000 residents in 10 counties of Guizhou Province and Guangxi will be displaced by the construction. So far, 34,207 have been relocated to higher ground.

Longtan hydropower project is just one of the many water control facilities being constructed in west China.

Ma Hongqi, a hydroelectric specialist and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said China was at a construction peak in hydropower projects, most of which are being built in west China, during the 11th five-year-plan period (2006-2010) and would experience another peak from 2012 to 2016 when many of the projects would begin generating.

China boasts 540 million kw of exploitable hydro-electric resources, most of which are concentrated on rivers in west China. Only 24 percent of the country's hydroelectric resources are utilized.

The country will have the world's highest capacity of hydroelectric plants at 125 million kw by 2010, accounting for 19percent of national capacity. Total installed capacity was 508 million kw last year.

By 2010, 40 percent of the country's hydroelectric resources will be utilized, said Ma.