China’s First UHV Project Implements Two-Way Long-Distance Power Supply of 60 Billion kWh North-South

Author:  Source: the Internet  Published time: June 9, 2014

China’s first UHV project, Southeastern Shanxi – Nanyang –Jingmen 1,000kW UHV AC Experimental Demonstration Project, has been safely running for five years and a half. By the 6th of this month, it had supplied 60 billion kWh two-way between State Grid North China and State Grid Central China, fully demonstrating the advantages of UHV in the optimized allocation of energy resources over a long distance and within a large scope.

Dubbed the world’s most advanced “high-speed railway for power transmission””, this project starts from Changzhi, Shanxi and ends in Jingmen, Hubei, running over a distance of 645km. Also as the world’s first UHV AC route in commercial service, the route transmits power from the highly efficient thermal power from Shanxi (a major coal base) to the regions south of Shanxi, alleviating the pressure of electric power supplies in Central China lacking fossil energy. In the flood season each year, the route sends the surplus of clean hydropower in central Chinese provinces such as Sichuan to Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, etc. in North China, helping them to cut coal power.

As our reporter learned from State Grid Hubei Inspection and Maintenance Co. in charge of the O&M of this project, State Grid North China has, since New Year’s Day in 2009, accumulatively transmitted to State Grid Central China 47.1 billion kWh of thermal power, equivalent to more than 23 million tons of coal in 390,000 railway carriages by air; meanwhile, State Grid Central China has accumulatively transmitted 13 billion kWh of hydropower to State Grid North China, equivalent to 6.5 million tons of coal saved.

Yin Zhengmin, general manager of State Grid Hubei, said, as a trial base for national UHV grid development, hub for two-way power supply North-South, and national network interconnection, Hubei has shifted from “over-dependence on coal shipping” to “equal emphasis on coal shipping and power transmission with a bias toward the latter”; UHV will provide a solution to the “emergence of Central China” and serve as a convenient tool for energy cost saving.

He added that UHV will help to manage and control smog. As per estimation, 100 million kWh of power transmitted via UHV is equivalent to an emission reduction of seven tons in PM2.5, or 17 tons in PM10, or about 450 tons of sulfur dioxides and/or nitrogen oxides.