Travelouge: The hydropower workshops that CEDREN recently held in China were the final ones of the FutureHydro project, focusing on knowledge exchange between Norway and China.
12th to 19th October 2015.
12th of October, 6 researchers travelled from Norway to Beijing for the final workshop in the FutureHydro project. A tight schedule was planned, and it started off with an ambitious day straight at Tsinghua University straight of the night plane from Amsterdam to Beijing. With the right balance of coffee, interesting presentations and discussions, and then some more coffee, the newly arrived team managed through their day, and to the special banquet offered by Prof Ma Jiming. All together we spent three days at Tsinghua, and the days were filled with interesting presentations from both the Norwegian (CEDREN, CSDI) and Chinese project partners (Tsinghua, IWHR). We even got a speed tour of the university, with an impressive amount of sights and group photos in a short span of time.
Interesting discussions both at day and in the evening at the special banquet. Speedtourism at Tsinghua University after our workshop. Photos: Kari Dalen / SINTEF.
From Beijing, we travelled with train to Zhengzhou, a "mid-sized" Chinese city whose population equals more or less the double of the total population of Norway. We visited North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power (NCWU), and were warmly welcomed by the academic staff and directors. As at Tsinghua, we had fruitful discussions with both academic staff and students. And when one of the presenters got a plenary comment from a student that she was beautiful, the success was complete.
Beijing West Railway Station, and one of it's waiting halls, on a size of a normal Norwegian Railway station. Photos: Kari Dalen / SINTEF.
Warm welcome to NCWU. Around 100 students and academic staff listening to our presentations. Line Sundt-Hansen (lower left) briefing the crowd on latest news in reconciling Salmon and hydropower interests, Atle Harby (lower middle) on hydropower classification, while Kari Dalen (lower right) answers questions. Photos: Kari Dalen / SINTEF.
After NCWU we were lucky enough to have arranged a visit to Xiaolangdi power plant at the Yellow River, and we were even allowed inside the power plant.
Discussions inside Xiaolangdi power plant. Jiehong Kong had her first visit to a hydropower plant, learning useful approaches for her modelling work back at SINTEF Energy. Downstream Xiaolangdi dam gardening. After the visit, the team from NCWR had prepared a speed-tour around the new campus, which looks very promising. Finally, the team from NCWR is waving us goodbye at the new train station in Zhengzhou. Photos. Kari Dalen / SINTEF.
After Zhengzhou, we ventured further west to Yichang in order to visit Gezhouba dam and Three Gorges dam at the Yangtze River. A guide took us through the exciting features of the world's largest power plant, and we spent the whole day seeing and learning about the two installations.
Team concentrating on Gezhouba dam. Visiting Three Gorges Corporation and a model of the project, which happens to be China's largest model, the size of a playground. Photos: Kari Dalen / SINTEF.
The day and the trip were both finalized by testing the water in Yangtze. Atle, the project manager, even went swimming, and got additional hands-on experience with the hydraulic powers of the Yangtze. With this, an intensive, highly educational and interesting workshop and field trip to China was over, and we would very much like to thank all the partners involved for a very successful trip. Thank you.
Yangtze moments. Photo: Kari Dalen / SINTEF.
Written by Kari Dalen.