Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has become one of the major regions taking the lead in China's renewable energy push, thanks to long-distance, large-capacity and low-loss ultrahigh-voltage power grids.
The region currently has 56 power transmission lines with a total length of 7,764 km, which have played a major role in boosting local economies and facilitating the consumption of more renewable energy.
The region, with an abundance of strong winds and long hours of sunlight, has transmitted plenty of renewable energy resources to energy-hungry coastal regions. By the end of October, the region boasted 107 million kilowatts of total installed capacity for power connected to the grid.
Another example is the Qinghai-Henan ultrahigh-voltage direct-current project, a 1,587-km, 800-kilovolt DC line to transmit renewable energy from the country's western parts to central parts. The Qinghai DC project kicked off construction on Oct 15 last year and is likely to commence operations by the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, said State Power Investment, its operator.
As the government plans to build massive wind and solar power facilities in the country's Gobi Desert and other arid regions, it is expected that regions like the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and Qinghai province are expected to become major clean energy industry bases in the country, which will in turn help increase demand for ultrahigh-voltage transmission lines in the country, said Wei Hanyang, a power market analyst at research firm BloombergNEF.