The dam will then become "the biggest in the world," according to the China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Corporation.
One final benefit touted for the project is that it will elevate the Yangtze for hundreds of kilometers inland, allowing ocean-going vessels to travel as far as Chongqing.
This will, planners hope, help open up China's underdeveloped west, which has in many ways missed out on economic reforms largely because of its isolation from overseas markets.
To ease upstream navigation, a ship lift will enable vessels of up to 3,000 tonnes to pass the dam in around 45 minutes, while a ship lock will do the same to 10,000-tonne vessels in two hours and 45 minutes.
With work on the dam complete, thousands of migrant workers will go home, many of them to Yunnan Province near the border with Vietnam, and to Qinghai Province near the Tibetan plateau.
But Wang was confident the dam's completion would not leave him unemployed.
"Every project takes at least 10 years, so I'll have more than enough work until I retire," he said.
"I've been lucky to work with something that I really love," he said.
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