Jul 13, 2005 - BBC Monitoring

China has successfully connected power grids for its northern, northwestern and central regions to form a huge integrated power grid, a local official in charge of power supply in central China's Henan Province said on Wednesday [13 July]. The newly integrated power grid is believed to be the world's largest and will facilitate a more efficient distribution of energy throughout China, said the official with Henan Power Corporation. The move is also expected to help ease the current strain on power suplies in the country, the official added.

According to the official, the northern China power grid was connected with the central China power grid after a 500-kV power transmission line was put into operation. Combination of the two power grids involved 14 Chinese provincial-level regions, with the combined installed generating capacity totalling 140,000 MW. The connection between the central China and northwest China power grids was made possible on the basis of the operatio n of a 330-kV current-transforming substation in western Henan Province. The integration of all the three power grids has enabled power to be more efficiently distributed in a united grid of both direct and alternating current for all provincial-level areas across the country, except for Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, Tibet Autonomous Region and the two island provinces of Hainan and Taiwan.

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