Twelfth Five-Year Plan to Build RMB 500 Billion into UHV Transmission Backbone Grids

Liu Zhenya, general manager of State Grid Corporation of China, announced on the 6th that in the next five years, China will invest more than 500 billion yuan to build a “three vertical and three horizontal” UHV AC backbone grid and 11 UHV DC transmission projects. The total length of UHV transmission lines will reach 40,000 kilometers, forming a strong grid of AC and DC coordinated development.

Liu Zhenya believes that China's repeated coal and electricity transportation tense situation is mainly due to over-dependence on energy allocation for coal transmission, and the proportion of transmission is obviously low, and the role of the grid in the energy integrated transport system is still not enough. Therefore, it is necessary to speed up the transformation of the development mode of electric power to realize the simultaneous transmission of coal and electricity, in particular to give priority to the development of transmission.

Liu Zhenya made the above statement at the first and the first mobilization meeting for the first UHV transmission line expansion project in the world. He believes that in the next 10 years, China's UHV power grid construction will face major development opportunities. It is estimated that China’s total electricity consumption and power generation capacity will reach 6.1 trillion kWh and 1.44 billion kilowatts by the end of the “Twelfth Five-year Plan” and will reach 7.8 trillion kwh and 1.76 billion kilowatts by the end of the “Thirteenth Five-year Plan”. Both are doubled on the basis of 2009, and the growth space is very large.

He said that with the acceleration of construction of large-scale coal-fired, hydropower, nuclear power and renewable energy bases based on wind power and solar power in the western region, at the end of the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan”, trans-provincial and inter-provincial power transmission will exceed 400 million kilowatts. Urgently need to accelerate the construction of UHV power grids.

The main way to send western energy is the UHV transmission line. Liu Zhenya said that during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, China will invest more than 500 billion yuan to build a "three vertical and three horizontal" UHV AC backbone grid and 11 UHV DC transmission projects.

At that time, wind power and coal power in Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Hebei will be sent to North China, Central China, and East China through three vertical UHV channels; coal and electricity in the north and hydropower in the southwest will be sent to North China and Central China through three horizontal UHV channels. In the Yangtze River Delta region, electricity supply is guaranteed nationwide.