ISLAMABAD, Nov 27 (APP): In the next five years, China will invest 200 billion yuan (US$31 billion) in building power grids in the north-west province of Xinjiang to connect the region to the country’s east, Pakistan and central Asian countries.
Resources-rich Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the core area for the Silk Road Economic Belt, will create power transmission lines by 2020 as it builds the “Power Silk Road,” Xinhua news agency reported.The grid projects are an important infrastructure plan for the region,
guaranteeing power supply for local residents and enterprises in Xinjiang,
said Xinjiang Electric Power Company under the State Grid Corp of China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping told the UN Sustainable Development Summit
in September that China proposes discussing a global energy network to meet
global power demand with clean and green alternatives.To build a global energy network coincides with the trend for low-carbon, efficient and balanced energy distribution, said Zhao Qingbo, an analyst with the State Grid.Clean energy like solar and wind power must be integrated into grids to realize large-scale development, said Zhao.
Xinjiang’s energy network will also help narrow development gaps
between different regions, he added.
China began to purchase electricity from Russia in 1992. Currently,
Heilongjiang Province in northeast China has four operating power transmission lines connecting Russia.
The implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative will push the
interconnection of grids in Asia, said Liu Xiaosheng, a professor of electric engineering at the Harbin Institute of Technology in Heilongjiang.
The China-proposed initiative refers to a trade and infrastructure
network connecting Asia to Europe and Africa through the Silk Road Economic
Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
Liu Zhenya, president of the State Grid, said the country will
accelerate grid interconnectivity with neighboring countries such as Russia,
Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Laos, Nepal and Thailand in the
coming decade.
He estimated that the global energy network will be basically completed
by 2050.
It is estimated that from 2016 to 2030, China’s annual investment in
clean energy and related infrastructure projects will grow to 820 billion
yuan, according to Liu.
By the end of 2020, China aims to increase non-fossil energy to about
15 percent of the total primary energy consumption and raise the share of
renewable energy in production.
In 2020, China’s installed hydro, wind and solar power capacity will
reach 350 million, 240 million and 100 million kw, mainly in the west and
north regions. The current operating capacity is about 482 million kW in
China.
Pakistan's National News Agency
