Construction of the Hongjiadu and Yinzidu hydropower stations, and the expansion of the Wujiangdu Hydropower Station started Wednesday on the Wujiang River, in southwest China's Guizhou Province.

The projects are among the first group of China's massive west-east electricity transmission project, marking the beginning of the development of the western region.

Wujiang River is the biggest tributary on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, the longest river in China.

The three projects have a combined power capacity of 1.49 million kilowatts and involve an investment of 7.3 billion yuan。

At the same time，construction of three electricity transmission lines and a thermal power station in Yunnan also started.

The seven projects, covering Yunnan, Guizhou and Hubei provinces, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Chongqing Municipality, will form the south route of the west-east electricity transmission project, sending electricity to the south China power grid.

The north route will transmit electricity through the Inner Mongolia Autonomous region and Shaanxi Province to the north China power grid, and the third route will travel through Sichuan and other provinces sending electricity to the central China and east China power grids.

Guizhou has water energy resources of 16.4 million kilowatts and perspective coal reserves of 240 billion tons, with an expected installed capacity of 40 million kilowatts.

Construction of the three power station projects will help raise Guizhou's total installed capacity to 13 million kilowatts by the end of 2005 from the current 6 million kilowatts.

According to an agreement between Guizhou and Guangdong provinces, Guizhou will start sending electricity to Guangdong in 2003, and by 2005, Guizhou will transmit 3-4 million kilowatts of electricity to Guangdong annually.

The west-east electricity transmission project refers to the fact that China is developing the rich power resources in the western region and sending electricity to Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin and other places which are in short supply of electricity.

China is the country having richest water energy resources in the world. It has an exploitable installed capacity of 378 million kilowatts and an annual production capacity of 192 million kilowatt-hours. Ninety percent of the potential power resources are in China's southwest，central and northwest regions.

By the end of 1999, the total installed capacity of China's hydropower stations was 73 million kilowatts, accounting for 19 percent of the national total water energy resources.

Furthermore, China's coal reserves are mainly concentrated in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces and the western part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. However, seven provinces and municipalities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong account for more than 40 percent of the national total power consumption.

(Xinhua 11/08/2000)