China Southern Power Grid to build new GBA network

China Southern Power Grid claims that, by 2030, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) will have completed building a ‘smart power grid,’ according to Chinese reports.

The Guangzhou-based state-owned enterprise will invest more than 170 billion yuan (about USD25.3 billion) across 2018 to 2022 to improve the disaster prevention capacity of power grids in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, which is frequently hit by natural disasters including typhoons.

The company vows to ensure central urban areas in Guangzhou and Shenzhen will have power outages last for no more than 30 minutes each year, while other cities such as Zhuhai and Zhongshan will have power cuts of less than one hour annually.

It will also invest more than 20 billion yuan during the period, mostly in the fields of clean energy, direct-current transmission, distributed micro grid, engineering centers and laboratories on energy storage and superconductivity.

According to the company, total electricity consumption in GBA reached 520 billion kilowatts in 2018 and is expected to hit 700 billion kilowatts by 2035.

In addition, the company is building the world’s first UHV multi-terminal flexible transmission project. After its completion and commissioning in 2021, the project will add 5 million kilowatts of clean water from Yunnan to the GBA, whereby coal consumption and carbon dioxide emissions in the Bay Area will be reduced by 6 million tons and 16 million tons respectively.  JZ