(Yicai Global) March 26 -- Power Construction Corp. of China has begun pouring concrete at the Shuangjiangkou Hydropower Station in southwestern China, which is set to become the world's tallest dam upon completion in 2024.

The facility, at the basin of the Dadu River in Sichuan province, will be 315 meters high and have an installed capacity of two gigawatts when finished, China National Radio reported online. The first concrete pouring process filled around 400 cubic meters and took eight hours.

The station's whole construction process is information and intelligence-based and tracked by a visual monitoring system, said Hua Zhengchao, project manager. Fully automated rolling and filling, unmanned driving and laser-scanning technologies have all been used so far in the cofferdam filling, quality inspections and topographic surveys, he added.

Once complete, the hydropower project will have an adjustable reservoir capacity of 1.9 billion cubic meters, allowing it to save about 3 million tons of coal per year and reduce carbon emissions by 7.2 million tons while improving flood control capabilities of cities in the Dadu River's downstream sections.

Editor: James Boynton