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China energy security
EconomyChina Economy

China’s massive project to funnel clean energy from Tibet enters new phase

The ultra-high-voltage power lines will connect Tibet’s vast hydropower, solar and wind projects with factory hubs in southern China

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Workers inspect a solar power facility in China’s northern Hebei province. China is ramping up investment in its power grid amid surging demand from the country’s artificial intelligence industry. Photo: Xinhua
Alice Li

China has kicked off construction on the southern section of the Tibet-Guangdong ultra-high-voltage power transmission line, an ambitious scheme to channel vast amounts of green energy generated high in the mountains of western China to factory hubs along the country’s south coast.

The project – which will shoot the equivalent of half the electricity produced by the Three Gorges Dam across China each year – comes as Beijing strives to push forward with its carbon-reduction plans and keep up with surging power demand from the country’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry.
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The transmission line will stretch from the Tibetan Plateau to the megacities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the south, passing through high-altitude areas and permafrost zones to form what Chinese officials have described as a “heavenly route for green power”.

Construction on the project kicked off in September, and on Tuesday work began on the Guangdong section of the line, the state-run People’s Daily reported. The entire project is due to be completed in 2029.

Once online, it will deliver more than 43 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year from a renewable energy base in the Tibet autonomous region to Guangdong province, which should enable the region to reduce its coal consumption by about 12 million tonnes, according to China Southern Power Grid, one of the project’s developers.

“Tibet is a strategic energy base rich in hydropower, wind and solar, while Guangdong – a major economic powerhouse – leads the country in electricity consumption and needs larger-scale imports of power from other regions,” the company said in a news release in September.

Building the power lines will require a total investment of about 53.2 billion yuan (US$7.64 billion), with a further 150 billion yuan needed for supporting infrastructure, it added.

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China is ramping up investment to upgrade its power system, as it looks to provide a solid foundation for the development of power-hungry hi-tech industries such as AI amid an intensifying tech rivalry with the United States.

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