A power transmission passageway connecting Sichuan with Wanxian, a city in Chongqing Municipality, will be built this year. Construction of a 500 kilovolt power transmission passageway linking Wanxian with the Three Gorges Power Station in Hubei Province will start this year and should be completed by next year.

There is already a 500 kilovolt passageway linking Hubei and Shanghai. Once the 500 kilovolt power transmission passageway linking Wanxian and the Three Gorges Power Station in Hubei is completed next year, Sichuan's power grids can connect with those of East China, making it possible to implement the east-west transmission strategy.

"If everything goes well, Sichuan's surplus hydropower will be transmitted to eastern China next year," said Shi Wanjian, director of the Sichuan Power Industry Bureau.

China's energy distribution is unbalanced. Seventy per cent of its hydropower resources are in western China's Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces and the Tibet Autonomous Region. Sichuan alone accounts for 25 per cent of the country's total hydropower resources.

While contributing to more than 20 per cent of China's gross domestic product, East China's Shanghai Municipality and Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces only have 1.8 per cent of the nation's hydropower resources.

Transmitting hydropower from western to eastern China seems to be the likely solution to the imbalance as it benefits both the economically advanced east and the less-developed west.

By using hydropower from the west, East China can rely less on thermal power and reduce pollution, while western China can turn its abundant resource into profit.

The central government's western development strategy has offered a new chance for implementing the transmission of hydropower from west to east.

As China plans to close many thermal plants nationwide, western hydropower will be even more in demand.

(China Daily)