State Grid Promotes Green, High-Quality Development of Grid Construction

State Grid Corporation of China (State Grid) is traveling the road of green development and has set a goal of becoming a world-leading energy internet enterprise with Chinese characteristics.

The company advances consumption of clean energy and promotes electric power by innovating in environmental protective power grid technology, which effectively boosts green and high-quality development of China's power grid construction.

High utilization rate of new energy

Zhangjiakou of Hebei province has extensive access to wind and solar power and is home to plenty of clean energy projects.

At present, the total installed capacity based on clean energy is about 13.31 million kW and it is estimated that the amount will reach 20 million kW. The current annual electricity output exceeds 37 billion kWh.

Standing on the Zhangbei grasslands in Zhangjiakou is a national demonstration project integrating generation, storage and transmission of electricity produced by wind-solar power, the world's largest of its kind. It uses more than 30 advanced technologies as well as 119 sets of high-end facilities with proprietary intellectual property rights.

Zhangjiakou will hold some events of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. In response to the call for low-carbon development of the Olympics, State Grid constructed a low-carbon demonstration zone on the basis of its comprehensive project on the Zhangbei grasslands.

In the new zone, supporting flexible power projects, diversified power consumption projects and smart power utilization service projects will be built to guarantee a 100 percent green power supply for the venues, which will be the first time ever that has been done in Olympic history.

The Zhangbei flexible direct current (DC) power grid pilot demonstration project recently completed its first trial operation with four terminals connecting to the grid at the same time.

The project will effectively meet all clean energy-based power demands of the Winter Olympic venues and is also capable of transmitting about 14.1 billion kWh of power to Beijing annually, equaling the power produced by about 4.9 million tons of standard coal while reducing emissions of carbon dioxide by 12.8 million tons.

Moving westward to Qinghai province, State Grid on May 9 initiated a series of activities to provide renewable energy-based power for 16 counties and one town in the province's Sanjiangyuan, headstream of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River.

During the 100 days of those activities all power used in the affected areas will be produced by water, solar and wind. It is predicted that about 500 million kWh of power produced by clean energy will be used.

In South China's Fujian province, Meizhou Island has been built into a national ecological national resource. State grid has constructed a multi-functional interaction control system and promoted an intelligent energy service platform on the island.

This March, a photovoltaic station, power storage depots and charging stations were connected to the platform, which improves effective utilization of clean energy on the island based on data analysis.

An overall view of the energy storage power station on Meizhou Island [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

By the end of 2019, the new energy utilization rate of State Grid's operating projects reached 96.8 percent.

So far, the installed capacity of the company's new energy-based projects exceeds 350 million kW, which is the largest energy volume produced by wind and solar power in the world.

Promoting electrical energy in rural areas

Environmental protection has been highly valued in recent years. To promote the construction of ecological civilization, many traditional mining and concrete factories were closed.

Yucun village in Anji county of East China's Zhejiang province is one of the areas that have developed an ecological economy.

State Grid's power supply bureau in Huzhou of Zhejiang helped improve the average capacity of distribution and transformed power availability in each household from 3.27 kVA to 8.6 kVA, much higher than the national standard for rural areas.

The company also made efforts to build the village into a rural electrification demonstration zone, which contributed to rural vitalization.

Moreover, State Grid played a big role in protection of the Yangtze River region by constructing a green shore power experimental zone in the Three Gorges Dam area, which pushed forward full shore power coverage in ports along the river.

The zone also promoted the birth of China's first inland river shore power facility group technical standards and unified the shore power construction standard system along the Yangtze River.

New energy cars are also a target of State Grid. The company is in full swing in building charging piles and had connected 430,000 to the smart car network platform by the end of 2019.

Charging piles built by State Grid [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

In a project to make coal-fired heating systems electricity-based, the company invested a total of 33.8 billion yuan ($4.79 billion) in construction of supporting facilities in 2019, which contributed to reduced utilization of coal by about 5.32 million tons and reduced emissions of carbon dioxide by 9.47 million tons as well as lessened amounts, about 3.01 million tons, of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and dust.

Green power grid in progress

A main business of State Grid, power grid construction has been increasing adherence to the principle of environmental protection.

Take the Qinghai-Henan ±800 kV ultra-high voltage (UHV) direct current (DC) transmission project as an example.

The project is the world's first of its kind to transfer power produced by clean energy.

Linking Northwest China's Qinghai province and Central China's Henan province, the transmission line passes through Hanzhong of Shaanxi province, which is also known as "hometown of the crested ibis".

Dubbed the "Oriental Gem", the bird disappeared from the skies for nearly 20 years only to be seen again in China, which now has more than 3,000 crested ibises, according to Xinhua News Agency.

To protect the precious species, the company designed a special route to bypass the bird's reserve area. The design increased the length of the power line by nearly 40 kilometers and cost more than 100 million yuan, but left the birds a serene living environment.

What's more, special designs of overpasses and uneven piles and pillars were developed and transport of materials by aerial cableway was taken to lower engineering impacts on the environment.

In Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region, the Qinghai-Tibet alternating current-direct current (AC-DC) grid network project also passes several national nature reserve areas including the Hoh Xil and Sanjiangyuan.

State Grid invested a large amount of money in recovering plants, protecting wild animals and reserving the frozen earth and wetland, which earned the project the China Environment Award in 2014.

Along the Yangtze River, the Xiangjiaba-Shanghai ±800 kV UHV DC transmission project, which goes through eight provincial regions and crosses the river four times, was built with measures to conserve water and soil.

A view of the Xiangjiaba-Shanghai ±800 kV UHV DC transmission project [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

In addition to environmental protection, the company is also concerned about environmentally-friendly construction in urban areas.

At a sculpture park in Jing'an district of Shanghai, it established a 500 kV transformer substation. It is the first 500 kV underground transformer substation with ultra-large capacity and multiple voltage levels in China.

Located in Shanghai's downtown, the substation is equipped with several new technologies to monitor environmental factors. For example, it effectively recycles waste oil, sulfur hexafluoride and used lithium batteries during its operations to protect the surrounding environment.

(Executive editor: Wang Ruoting)