State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) has connected the Gan 1 section of the ±800 Ningxia–Hunan ultra-high voltage direct current (UHVDC) transmission project to the grid.
Located in Gansu, it is the first section of the project to be completed, and that too, one month ahead of schedule. The larger UHVDC project entails building 1,634 km of lines that start in Zhongwei, Ningxia at the edge of the Tengger Desert, travel through the provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi, Chongqing and Hubei, and finally reach Hunan. The project also entails building two converter stations, one in Zhongwei, Ningxia and the other in Hengyang, Hunan, with a combined transmission capacity of 8 GW and a project investment of CNY28.1 billion. In Ningxia, the line spans 258.845 km, which will be built across 495 new towers. The Gansu section is 184.01 km long and involves the construction of 182 new transmission towers. It is linked to the Shagehuang (Gobi desert and wasteland area) base in Ningxia, which has 9.6 GW of solar PV power, 4.64 GW of supporting coal power, and 9.6 GW of wind power. Once completed, the entire UHVDC project will transmit more than 36 TWh of electricity from Ningxia to Hunan each year, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by more than 16 million tonnes and greatly enhancing the security of Hunan’s power supply.