WUHAN, Jan. 12(Xinhuanet)-- The Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River in China will be able to generate 47 billion kwh of electricity this year.

An executive with China Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Development Corporation explained that the installed capacity of the project would increase to 9.8 million kW as the last three of the 14 planned generating units on the northern bank of the Yangtze River will begin power generation and be brought onto the grid later this year.

Launched in 1993, the Three Gorges Project is being built in three stages on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, China's longest. Preparations and construction of the first phase were carried out between 1993 and 1997. The Yangtze was dammed at the Three Gorges area for the first time on November 8, 1997.

In accordance with an original plan, the Three Gorges Project, with an estimated cost of 180 billion yuan(approximately 21.7 billion US dollars), will have 26 generators with a combined generating capacity of 18.2 million kW. The project will be able to generate 84.7 billion kW/hours of electric power annually when it is completed in 2009.

But, a revision of the plan also calls for inclusion of a new underground power plant with six new 700,000-kW generators. The remaining 18 generating units of the Three Gorges Project, which is also one of the major water control works to harness the Yangtze, will all be installed on the southern bank of the river.

Eleven generators had been put into service by July 10, 2003 when the first of the project's generators began working. The project produced 39.1 billion kwh of electricity last year, 5.72 billion kwh more than the state-set quota.

Half of the power generated was sent to economically developed east China, 25 percent to central China and the remainder to southChina's Guangdong Province, said Li Yong'an, general manager of China Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Development Corporation.