State Grid Completes Power Construction in West China’s Poverty-Stricken Areas

The Jiabi-Matang 110kV power line in Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture in Southwest China's Sichuan province went into operation on June 30, bringing a close to power grid construction contracted by  State Grid Corporation of China (State Grid) in extremely poverty-stricken areas in West China.

Such areas include Tibetan areas in Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan provinces and the Tibet autonomous region, Northwest China's Hotan, Aksu, Kashgar and the Kizilsu Kirghiz autonomous prefectures as well as Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture in Sichuan, Nujiang Lisu autonomous prefecture in Southwest China's Yunnan and Linxia Hui autonomous prefecture in Northwest China's Gansu.

Since then, safe and stable power has been available for 198 poverty-stricken counties and 4.43 million households in the five regions.

Plans on power grid construction and renovation in such areas were released in 2018 by the National Energy Administration.

Sate Grid immediately got to work on power grid construction in extremely poverty-stricken areas.

The company invested 30.4 billion yuan ($4.48 billion) in 7,957 power grid construction projects in extremely poverty-stricken areas in Qinghai, Gansu, Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet between 2018 and 2020.

The projects benefit about 17.77 million residents in 198 poverty-stricken counties by stabilizing power supply.

The projects also promoted local power demands. According to the company, the number of fridges, washing machines, televisions, electric cooking appliances and electric processing devices increased by 72,000, 127,000, 211,000, 266,000 and 143,000 respectively, which improved residents' living standard.

For instance, in Suiba town which has been fully covered by 10kV power grid, villagers purchased their first machine to process zanba, a staple food for the Tibetans, or brew highland barley liquor, and opened a processing workshop.

Zanba processing now can be done quickly by turning on the machine. A villager explained that in the old days without a machine it took two people two days to get more than 50 kilograms of zanba powder, but now, only an hour is needed to get the same amount.

According to the company, in the first half year of 2020, power consumption in the mentioned areas exceeded 32 billion kWh, a growth of more than 30 percent compared to 2017.

Power grid construction in extremely poverty-stricken areas in the Tibet autonomous region has been the largest project and a major livelihood source of China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20).

With a total investment of nearly 9.96 billion yuan, the construction scale, with 214 sub projects, accounted for one third of the entire project in West China and benefited 230,000 households.

(Executive editor: Wang Ruoting)