Posted on April 21, 2025
A new electric-powered cutter suction dredger (CSD) owned by China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) has deployed on its initial project at Beijing’s Guanting Reservoir.
Junlan was built by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries and is being operated by CCCC’s Tianhang Bureau. All of the CSD’s onboard machinery is powered by electricity, which reduces the vessel’s environmental impact during operations.
With the aid of a 600kW cutter, Junlan is capable of extracting sediment from a depth of 25 metres at a rate of 2,200 cubic metres per hour, making it ideal for deployment in rivers, lakes, and dams of various sizes.
The dredger is equipped with high-efficiency, wear-resistant mud pumps and an intelligent monitoring system. The underwater mud pump, the cabin mud pump, and the cutter are all powered by variable frequency drives.
A shore connection allows the dredger to source electricity from the local grid, thus freeing up the generators for use when the dredger is deployed in remote areas with inadequate power distribution infrastructure.
The CSD has been designed to permit operation by only one person if needed while the modular construction – with each main structural component measuring no more than four metres wide – allows the vessel to be easily disassembled, transported by road or rail even to remote mountainous areas, and then re-assembled on-site.
