The Gezhouba Water Conservancy Project includes the barrage, the power plant, the ship brake, the flood discharge brake, and the fishway, etc. It is the largest one in China before the completion of Three Gorges Dam.
The embankment is 2,561m long and 70m high, which controls a drainage area of 1,000,000 kilometers with total content of 1.58 billion steres. The station possesses of 21 dynamos, with electric energy production of 2,715 kilowatts, about 13.8 billion kilowatt-hours annually.
The project was carried on by 2 stages. The first stage started in 1970, and now has been completed. The navigation was kept unobstructed during the stage. In the second stage the river was blocked and navigation was stopped so as to ensure that the dam could be built smoothly.
The Gezhouba Project will be a conveyance system to the 'Three Gorges Project' in the future. After the Gezhouba project was finished, the water level of the river 100 km up to the Three Gorges was elevated 20m, and the sea-route was largely improved consequently.
The ship lock chamber 3 is 18m in breadth and 120m in length, which allow passenger-cargo vessels and civil fleet less than 3000 tons to pass.
The ship lock chamber 2 is 34 meters wide and 280 meters long and able to contain ships over 10,000 tons. It takes about 50 minutes for a ship to go through it. The second ship lock is one of the rare giant ship locks in the world.
