At the time, a confident employee of Hunan\u2019s provincial grid operator told<\/a> state-owned news outlet Economic Information Daily that \u201cafter the line is built, we expect Hunan will not have any power shortages for the next 10 years.\u201d At a cost of 26 billion yuan (US$3.9 billion), the 2,383km Jiuquan\u2013Hunan line went into operation in 2017, becoming part of China\u2019s growing UHV network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In December, when a cold front<\/a> hit parts of China, that confidence was put to the test. While factories were already running at full tilt to compensate for Covid-19-related shutdowns elsewhere in the world, people turned up their heating \u2013 which in the southern half of China often runs on electricity \u2013 as temperatures plunged. Hunan authorities predicted<\/a> an electricity shortage of 3 to 4 gigawatts, or about 10%, for the winter peak season. Apparently unable to increase supply, they reined in demand instead, turning down thermostats in government offices, switching off street lamps, and forcing companies to halt production<\/a> under rolling outages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a report analysing how such power rationing could have been avoided, China Energy News, an outlet overseen by party newspaper People\u2019s Daily, pointed to the persistently underperforming<\/a> Jiuquan\u2013Hunan UHV line. An anonymous Hunan-based electricity expert told the outlet that it had always been operating at just slightly more than half its planned capacity, leading them to conclude Hunan couldn\u2019t depend on other provinces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA relative afar is less use than a close neighbour,\u201d the expert said. \u201cWhen solving energy shortages, you can only rely on local power sources.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a chilling repudiation of the country\u2019s ambitions for UHV, a technology full of country-spanning potential that has so far been hampered by a Balkanised power system, technological incompatibilities with green energy , and questions of financial feasibility in a future liberalised market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Expensive and difficult to build, UHV lines transmit energy at 800,000 volts and above, double the voltage of conventional high-voltage lines, allowing them to transmit up to five times<\/a> more electricity at minimal energy loss along the way. They are seen as the answer to China\u2019s energy imbalance: whereas energy sources, including wind and sunshine, are mostly found inland, much of the country\u2019s population lives toward the coast<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n UHV lines should also enable China to rely more on renewable energy, necessary if the country is to make good on President Xi Jinping\u2019s pledge to be carbon neutral<\/a> by 2060. Piping in power from far away can mitigate the unpredictability of wind and solar energy, making UHV key to combating climate change<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China has been at the forefront of UHV technology for over a decade, with its first such line going into operation<\/a> in 2009 and a current network of 31 lines. Its building spree shows no signs of slowing down. In a plan published on 1 March, the country\u2019s largest grid operator State Grid said it wants to build another seven lines<\/a> in the next five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that enthusiasm belies continued disappointment. According to China Energy News, many UHV lines are running<\/a> at just a bit more than 60% of their design capacity due to technological limits and conflicts of interests between power generators, grid companies and local governments. This figure is an eyesore<\/a> for the central government. In report after report, the National Energy Administration has implored grid companies to do better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the outskirts of Shanghai, amid farm fields and wetlands and within earshot of the sea, stands the city\u2019s sole long-distance UHV converter station, a colorless collection of buildings surrounded by a constantly buzzing forest of metal poles and coils. Zhang Dezhen, an engineer at the station, waves his finger in the direction of the wires that sweep up to soaring towers and disappear into the foggy distance. He explains they connect Shanghai with the Xiangjiaba hydropower dam, 1,900km away in southwestern China\u2019s Sichuan province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The line, with a maximum capacity of 6.4 gigawatts, can supply up to 40% of the city\u2019s electricity. \u201cThis is the most important line in Shanghai\u2019s power system,\u201d Zhang tells Sixth Tone. According to State Grid, the hydropower from Sichuan allows Shanghai to burn 1.3 million fewer tons of coal per year, saving about 2.7 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But this, too, could be increased. Zhang says the Xiangjiaba\u2013Shanghai line only operates at full capacity from April to November, warm months when air conditioners drive up energy demand. During Shanghai\u2019s usually mild winters, the State Grid limits the amount of power the UHV line carries. \u201c(We) have to consider the stability of Shanghai\u2019s grid system,\u201d Zhang says. If the UHV line is responsible for too much of Shanghai\u2019s total power supply, any glitch \u2013 such as weather damage anywhere along the wire\u2019s trajectory \u2013 could crash the city\u2019s grid. \u201cIt\u2019s about not putting all the eggs in one basket,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In early January, the same historic cold spell<\/a> that earlier overwhelmed Hunan threatened the stability of Shanghai\u2019s power system. Zheng Qingrong, director of the demand response management center at State Grid subsidiary Shanghai Electric Power Company, tells Sixth Tone the company at the time predicted it would face tight supplies and had bought additional power from other provinces. Such purchases sometimes carry a markup, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The city\u2019s UHV line also brought relief. \u201cThis winter\u2019s allocation was higher than last year\u2019s,\u201d says Zhang, the UHV engineer. \u201cAt the time local Shanghai power stations were already doing everything they could to produce at full capacity.\u201d Though soaring demand<\/a> in the city of over 24 million people caused some local loss of electricity from overloaded equipment, there was never a shortage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A month later, the US state of Texas became an example of what can happen without such connectivity. The state famously runs its own grid, which isn\u2019t linked up with the rest of the country. When a winter storm hit \u2013 potentially caused<\/a> by the same climate change-linked phenomenon that caused the frigid temperatures in eastern China \u2013 the inability to import electricity was among the factors in the ensuing disaster, Zheng says. Over 4 million people lost power<\/a>, and hundreds suffered carbon monoxide poisoning when they tried to stay warm by running their cars in their garages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further interconnectivity between provinces is the answer to help China\u2019s grid weather the growing challenges posed by surging power demand and unpredictable climate, Zheng says. Currently, provinces are connected in six regional grids and trade some of their power, but mostly according to medium- and long-term contracts. The government aims<\/a> to increase electricity trading and create a national market. At the same time, State Grid is striving to link more province-level regions to a UHV line \u2013 presently six are left unconnected \u2013 thus creating a nationwide \u201csuper grid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the Hunanese experience and other cases demonstrate how this vision may prove difficult to realise. The Baihetan dam, currently under construction on the Jinsha River straddling the border of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, is set to become the world\u2019s second-largest hydropower station after the Three Gorges Dam once it is fully completed in 2022. From its inception, it was meant to connect to two UHV lines that would send power to Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces on China\u2019s eastern coast. The project has been delayed, however, due to a conflict over who owns its electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dam\u2019s investor and developer, China Three Gorges Corporation, reportedly hoped<\/a> to transmit the power directly to the receiving provinces \u2013 a common, cost-saving approach. But the provinces, after not showing much enthusiasm during the dam\u2019s planning phase, later hoped to get a share of the electricity to benefit their own economies. Sichuan reportedly argued the dam\u2019s power should be first loaded into its provincial grid \u2013 whereby the province would earn transmission fees \u2013 before being sent east. The province also wanted to keep some of the green energy to help reduce local air pollution, says Yang Fuqiang, a senior Beijing-based expert with Peking University\u2019s Institute of Energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, the National Energy Administration sided with the provinces<\/a>, allowing each to keep 10 terawatt-hours generated by Baihetan and another dam on the Jinsha River every year. The dispute delayed central government approvals, causing much of the construction of the UHV infrastructure \u2013 including converter stations and suspension towers \u2013 to fall behind schedule. The dam, which will eventually produce 62.5 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, may have to curtail its power<\/a> for at least a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The saga calls into question a central tenet of China\u2019s UHV project: that the country\u2019s east will have energy shortages for which energy surpluses in the west and north can compensate. For years, factories have been moving inland, however, encouraged by government policies<\/a> as well as increasing labour costs and other costs on the coast. \u201cIt\u2019s very noticeable that energy-intensive industries are moving westward voluntarily, because electricity costs much more in the east,\u201d Xu Zheng, an electrical engineer at Zhejiang University, tells Sixth Tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a result, the demand for energy is increasing rapidly in China\u2019s western regions. In 2020, power demand from Yunnan and Sichuan grew by over 5% compared with that of 2019, the highest rise<\/a> in the country, according to official data. \u201cThe big picture is clear that we will need more electricity overall in the future,\u201d Xu says. (Researchers estimate<\/a> China will see a 60% increase in power use by 2030 compared with 2020). \u201cBut would the eastern region still need this much power in the future? Would the west still have enough power to send out? It\u2019s hard to say.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s also unclear how UHV lines would fit into a future liberalised power market. Right now, the electricity they transport are \u201cstiff deliveries\u201d under China\u2019s old-fashioned planning system, says Zhang Shuwei, an analyst with Beijing-based think-tank Draworld Environment Research Center. Power transmitted through UHV lines is commonly delivered in fixed amounts according to fixed prices, based on long-term contracts. As such, while many of the receiving provinces are trialing liberalized power markets, power imported by UHV lines is often guaranteed a certain amount of use regardless of market circumstances. \u201cThe operation of the lines is not considering the dynamics of supply and demand at both ends,\u201d says Zhang Shuwei. \u201cIt is basically a privileged line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Increasing the usage rates of UHV lines in turn promotes<\/a> the production of green energy in China\u2019s sunny and windswept western regions, a central government priority. But in its latest inspection report<\/a>, the National Energy Administration notes that the amount of green energy transported by UHV lines remains subpar. In the plan it published in early March, the State Grid promised<\/a> to increase the share of clean energy, including hydropower, in its long-distance power transmission project to 50% by 2025, up from<\/a> 43% during the five-year period ending in 2020. And while rivers are currently China\u2019s main green electricity source, Xu of Zhejiang University says there isn\u2019t much more hydropower left to develop in the country. \u201cFurther increase of the clean energy share has to rely on adding more new energy (like solar and wind),\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China\u2019s renewable energy law requires governments as well as the State Grid to prioritise green electricity, but loopholes mean the law is treated \u201cmore as a guideline,\u201d David Fishman, energy consultant at The Lantau Group, tells Sixth Tone. Using power produced elsewhere can run counter to local interests in recipient provinces. \u201cThe receiving provinces or regions don\u2019t really have the incentive to absorb the wind and solar and to adjust their own operation,\u201d says Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to import from other provinces. They want to produce as much as they can themselves to maximise local GDP needs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are also technological reasons why UHV lines so far haven\u2019t been able to incorporate much green electricity. Currently, most cannot transmit the unevenly produced wind and solar energy alone but need it to be bundled with power from more stable sources, such as coal and hydropower. A pure-green energy mix presents a risk, as its supply could suddenly drop and threaten grid stability. \u201cThe ratio of wind over conventional energy is quite low, usually accounting for one-third of the mix,\u201d says Xu. He says that a new generation of UHV lines can, scientists theorise, handle solar and wind variability. But China\u2019s only such line is being used to transport hydropower, and so the theory remains untested outside the lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another technological solution is pairing renewables with storage, which makes their output less variable and thus more usable by UHV lines. At least six Chinese provinces have so far made storage facilities mandatory<\/a> for new green energy projects, even though critics say that, with current battery costs, the added expense prices them out of the market. Qinghai, a sparsely populated province in the northwest with plenty of wind and sunshine, offers<\/a> a subsidy for such projects in compensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the share of renewable energy in China\u2019s power production will almost certainly rise. To reach its 2060 carbon neutrality goal, China has pledged<\/a> to increase the share of consumed non-fossil fuel energy to 25% by 2030, up from<\/a> 15% in 2019. Falling prices are also making renewable energy the cheaper choice. \u201cIn terms of the economy, renewables are quite competitive,\u201d Wang Fei, an energy expert at the North China Electric Power University, tells Sixth Tone. It poses a challenge to UHV lines. \u201cIf they can show that these lines are running on clean electricity, it will be something that will make China a leader in this, because a lot of other countries find it very difficult to build these kinds of transmission projects,\u201d says Myllyvirta, of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Power](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Power-converter-facilities-in-Shanghai-Fengxian-Converter-Station_DSF6883-e1617011358433.jpg\")
<\/div>![\"Shanghai](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chinas-crossed-wires-supergrid-2.png\")
<\/div>Shanghai\u2019s distant relative<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"a](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/a-staff-member-at-the-Shanghai-Fengxian-Converter-Station_DSF6976.jpg\")
<\/div>Local priorities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Shanghai](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/chinas-crossed-wires-supergrid-1.png\")
<\/div>Getting greener<\/h2>\n\n\n\n