CSG’s 3rd UHVDC Project Wins NDRC Approval

On December 28, the Dianxibei-Guangdong ±800 kV UHVDC Transmission Project (“Dianxibei DC Project” for short), a project to transmit ±800 kV UHVDC from northwestern Yunnan Province to Guangdong Province, was approved by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The project is one of the 12 key power transmission lines in implementing the State Council’s Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan, a major project to ensure stable economic growth on the part of the State Council and CSG’s third ±800 kV UHVDC project belonging to the West-to-East Power Transmission Project.

The project starts from Dali, Yunnan Province, goes through provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Guangdong and ends in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. The overall length is 1,928 km, currently CSG’s longest transmission project. With a ±800 kV transmission plan, the project will be equipped with a transmission capacity of 5 GW. It is invested with a total number of 22.2 billion yuan and is expected to start transmitting electricity in 2017. When completed, it can deliver 20TWh of clean electricity to Guangdong, which will not only improve the transmission capacity of cascade hydropower stations on the upstream of the Lancang River, but relieve the increasingly serious environmental pollution in the Pearl River Delta. Consequently, it will contribute to the transformation of economic development mode and development of low carbon economy.

It is said that the supporting document for the project includes 45 national and provincial approvals, more than 600 city-and-county-level documents, 335 route agreements, making it unprecedentedly complex and challenging. Under the guidance and deployment of CSG’s leadership and with the help of the strong support from subsidiaries along the project line, the Extra High Voltage Power Transmission Company tried their best to overcome difficulties against the time limit during the earlier stage of the project, which was only one third as long as those of previous similar projects and fulfilled in the shortest time the tasks that could hardly have been finished. Many new records were set: it took only 17 work days from presenting the application for land using to receiving approval from the Ministry of Land and Resources, achieving for the first time zero supplementary documents; in the environmental assessment, it took only one and a half months to finish the adjustment and design of three first class water resource protection areas, which would otherwise take 21 months as usual, and it took only 20 work days from the review of environmental assessment report to receiving the approval from the Ministry of Environmental Protection; it took four months or so to obtain the supporting documents in the earlier stage from Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi; it took 2 work days to get the National Energy Administration’s approval and 12 work days to get the official approval from the NDRC.

The project won the approval, marking that CSG has made a major step forward in the progress of the Dianxibei DC Project. Having been fully prepared for the overall construction, the Extra High Voltage Power Transmission Company will continue to overcome technical problems such as high altitude and strong earthquake, improve the management of both major DC equipment and construction work and advance the construction progress with all its strength to make sure the project can be put into operation on time.