OREANDA-NEWS. June 10, 2011. Equipped with “made by WISCO” silicon steel, the world’s largest hydraulic engineering, the Three Gorges underground power station succeeded in being combined to grid with its first unit (No. 32). It marked that domestic largest running 700MW large-scale hydro-generator used “Chinese core” for the first time, broke long-term foreign monopoly on high end non-oriented silicon market in China, reported the press-centre of WISCO.

Among 32 generator units in the Three Gorges power station, 31 have adopted imported silicon steel. At present, WISCO is the only supplier for the Three Gorges to manufacture oversize generator at home. Monitoring data shows small temperature rise, low noise and well comprehensive performance for No. 32 unit, which indicates that WISCO high end non-oriented silicon steel applied on 700MW large-scale hydro-generator gets same properties as those of imported like products.

With zero production in China all the time, the high grade silicon steel used in the Three Gorges large-scale hydro-generator unit has being dependent on import for a long time under the situation of foreign monopoly. To relief from restrictions by foreign companies, and realize supply localization for high end products in power sector, WISCO has taken national need as own duty, increased R&D on high end non-oriented silicon steel, carried out more than ten times of tests, worked out over 30 technical challenges, organized benchmarking and production in strict accordance with world first class standards, and laid a solid foundation for fulfilling the zero breakthrough. 

In February 2009, WISCO started the program for tackling key problems especially on high grade non-oriented silicon steel required by the Three Gorges 700MW large-scale hydro-generator. Through mutual efforts from technicians and operators, WISCO produced high end product for the Three Gorges 700MW large-scale hydro-generator with all indicators reaching expected targets. On July 27, 2009, Three Gorges Project Construction Commission of the State Council held a review meeting for this product, and all experts agreed that 50W250 high grade non-oriented silicon steel could serve the needs for national large-scale hydro-generator, thermal power generator and nuclear power generator. At end of September of that year, hundreds of tons of qualified products were delivered to Harbin Generator Plant to manufacture stator cores for Three Gorges 700MW large-scale hydro-generators. In March 2010, these generators passed prophase integrated inspection and were installed on site of Three Gorges, then, no-load test was conducted in September. At 12 o’clock PM on May 24, 2011, the first generator unit was combined to grid successfully.

The production technology of silicon steel symbolizes the highest level in metallurgical sector. In recent years, WISCO silicon has gradually reversed the destiny of long term foreign monopoly on national strategic industries. WISCO president Mr. Deng Qilin pointed out that WISCO should undertake the mission to promote national industry, give the power of enterprise-wide and commit to national brand building. Currently, WISCO has achieved key breakthrough on silicon quality, technical merit and production capacity, ranking No. one on output of a single plant in the world.