The construction of a 500-kv electricity transmission line and two power transformer stations started in southwest China's Yunnan Province Sunday.
The project marks the beginning of the country's new efforts to transmit electric power from western China to the eastern areas.
The two transformer stations, located in Baofeng and Luoping of Yunnan Province, and the 210-km-long transmitting line that links the two, have an investment value of 600 million yuan (US$72.46 million).
The project, which is expected to be completed in 2002, will play an important role in the implementation of the country's plan to transmit electric power from resources-rich western China to energy-short coastal areas.
Yunnan Province ranks second in terms of workable hydroenergy resources in the country. Of its present installed power-generation capacity of 7.35 million kw, hydro-power accounts for over 67 percent.
Yunnan Province transmitted 3.7 billion kwh of electric power to south China's Guangdong Province from 1993 to 1999.
(Xinhua 11/06/2000)