Four planned hydroelectric power stations being built on the Jinsha River will be capable of producing twice as much power as the Three Gorges Dam, according to The China Three Gorges Corporation.

The company said the four new plants on the Jinsha, the westernmost of the major headwater rivers of the Yangtze River, will together generate about 190bn kilowatts of electricity a year after they become operational in the coming years.

The corporation received approval to build the massive plants in 2002 and construction of the first one, the Xiluodu, started in 2005 and is scheduled to be completed in 2013. It will have an installed capacity of 13.86m kilowatts, making it the second-largest hydropower station in China. Work on the Xiangjiaba station started in 2006 and it will be put into operation in 2012. The other two facilities are still being designed.

A severe and prolonged drought affected the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze until May, and was followed by floods in June. Some critics have blamed the Three Gorges Dam for causing or aggravating the situation and questioned its effectiveness in controlling floods. Zhu Guangming, director of the corporation's publicity department, countered these criticisms in an interview with China Daily.

He said that the Three Gorges Dam didn’t cause the drought, “but instead supplied those stricken areas with large quantities of water and relieved the drought greatly. While floods following the drought hit some areas after the start of June, they were limited”.