China's highest-voltage electricity transmission pilot project was put into operation by the country's largest grid builder the State Grid Corp of China (SGCC) yesterday in western China to meet surging demand for power distribution across the nation.

The 750-kilovolt line, linking Guanting of Qinghai Province with Lanzhou of Gansu Province in the western region, is also one of the world's top transmission projects with the highest voltage built on the highest altitude, the company said.

The project includes a 140-kilometre transmission line with two substations at each end in western China, and involves a total investment of some 1.09 billion yuan (US$134 million).

More than 90 percent of the project's equipment and technology is provided by the country's 26 domestic manufactures including the Xinjiang-based Tebian Electric Apparatus, a SGCC official who wishes to remain anonymous yesterday told China Daily on the sidelines of the operation ceremony in Beijing.

Information on foreign participation in the project was not available from the grid company.

"The successful operation of the high-voltage transmission line marks that China has become one of the world's leading state-of-the-art equipment and technology providers in electricity transmission and distribution, as well as in grid construction," Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan said on the ceremony yesterday.

The booming economy of the world's second-largest energy consumer has pushed the country's power generation expansion by a double digit rate in the past three years, which makes it imperative to further scale up the transmission and distribution network.

Statistics from the country's top economic policy planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), show that an additional generating capacity of 76 GW (gigawatts) will be added to the existing 440 GW across the nation this year, representing a 17 percent rise from last year.

The country has set an ambitious target to more than double its installed generation capacity to approximately 1,000 GW by 2020 to fuel its ballooning economic growth.

At the same time, similar high-voltage lines will be further expanded to enhance the transmission network, capable of transmitting 25 percent of the nation's total electricity generation capacity within the next 15 years.

SGCC sources said the company plans to massively extend its 750-kilovolt lines in the west to up to 4,730 kilometres by 2010.

Also part of the country's long-term blueprint, the intensified network of high-voltage transmission lines from the resource-rich western region to more economically-developed but energy-hungry eastern areas will also help balance the country's energy demand.

Coal resources in the northwestern region, for example, make up almost half of the country's total reserves, and the high-voltage lines are conducive to transmitting the coal-generated electricity to the power-guzzling east.

(China Daily September 27, 2005)