Power line to ease Guangdong energy thirst
By Xie Ye (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-06-07 10:55

The shortage of power in South China's Guangdong Province will soon be eased by electricity from the gigantic Three Gorges Dam some 1,000 kilometres to the north.

As operation of the Three Gorges-Guangdong 500 kilovolt direct current transmission project kicked off yesterday, power-pinched Guangdong will benefit from the world's largest hydropower project.

The project can add generation capacity of 3,000 megawatts, or one-sixth of the total generation capacity of the Three Gorges project, to Guangdong annually.

The project is expected to help the economically booming Guangdong Province alleviate the widespread power shortage.

Guangdong is known to be relatively short of energy and heavily dependent on energy from the north.

The province, like almost all the other provinces and autonomous regions, is struggling to keep power generation up with surging consumption driven by robust industrial production growth.

The whole country has been pinched by energy shortages during the past two years due to economic growth of around 8 per cent per year.

Local authorities have rationed the electricity supply, raised electricity tariffs at peak time and ordered factories to schedule more night and weekend shifts to ease the shortage.

Factories have to buy diesel generators to produce electricity on their own, which led to a boost in imports of diesel generators of 37.6 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year.

Even with the electricity from Three Gorges and other neighbouring areas, the province is still seeing a supply shortfall of 2,300-2,700 megawatts, or 5-6 per cent of the current generating capacity.

Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan yesterday hailed the transmission project as an important move to help ease the power shortage in Guangdong.

Zeng said the government is taking measures to increase the electricity supply, reinforce management on the demand side and strengthen power transmission from power-rich areas to those suffering from short supply.

He also said the project, which strengthens the link between power grids in the country's central and southern parts, will help the country form an integrated national power network.

Except for some weak across-region transmission lines, China's regional power grids used to be separated, hindering electricity transmission from power-rich areas to electricity-thirsty regions.

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