Second submarine cable to add power capacity to Hainan

Construction of a second submarine power cable to be laid under the Qiongzhou Strait in southern China will start before the end of the year, helping ease a power shortage in Hainan province, a senior manager at China Southern Power Grid Co said.

The 3.3 billion yuan ($532.25 million) cable will be built parallel to a first 32-kilometer link, the longest of its kind in the world which was put into operation in 2009 to carry excess capacity from the provincial grids of Guangdong to the nearby Island province.

The new cable, to be completed by 2017, will link the Gangcheng transformer substation in Guangdong's Zhanjiang to the Fushan transformer substation in Hainan's Chengmai county, and transmit about 300,000 kilowatts of power daily, and have a total transmission capacity of 600,000 kW.

"Hainan province has seen increased demand for electricity after transforming itself into an international tourism island," said Shangguan Yahui, deputy director-general of the Haikou branch of the Extra-high Voltage Power Transmission Co (Guangzhou), a China Southern Power Grid affiliate.

He said the first cable helped Hainan break what he called its long-term isolation in power grid with the mainland. "It has already played a significant role in ensuring a safer and more stable power supply for Hainan, benefiting about 8 million people," he said.

The cable has transmitted some 1.39 billion kilowatt-hours of power to the island.

Hainan suffered from an acute shortage of power last year after sharp spikes in residential and commercial electricity consumption.

Before its electricity network was joined to the China Southern Power Grid network in 2009, the province relied heavily on coal and gas-fired power. During the first half of this year, the island still had a power shortfall of 690,000 kW, Wang said.

One of the island's key customers to benefit from the extra power will be a 650 megawatt, pressurized water, nuclear power plant being built in Changjiang county, according to the Xinhua News Agency, which is expected to start generating power by 2017.

"The combined capacity of the submarine power cables and the nuclear power will help boost Hainan's efforts of being an international tourism island," said Wang.

China Southern Power Grid covers Guangdong, Yunnan, Guizhou, Hainan provinces and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, serving about 230 million people.