China builds world's largest rural
power grid
BEIJING, Oct 8, 2006 - Xinhua
China's power grid has been spreading quickly in
rural areas, with an extra 161,000 rural households
hooked up since March this year, raising the proportion
of rural families with access to electricity to a
historic 99.4 percent, said the country's top power
operator Sunday.
Wang Min, spokesperson for the State Grid Corporation
of China (SGCC), said that since 1998 when construction
of the rural grid began, a total of 380 billion yuan
(about 48.1 billion US dollars) has been pumped into
the power network extension, more than was invested
over the past 50 years.
The heavy investment means that 99.9 percent of
townships and 99.8 percent of villages in China now
have electricity, she said. However, some outlying
areas, particularly in western China, are still not
connected to the grid, Wang said.
The SGCC launched a project in March, vowing to bring
electricity to every rural household during the 11th
Five-Year plan (2006-2010) period. Big funds are needed
to extend the grid to those remote areas, where sparse
habitation and long distances make the investment
very unprofitable, the company admitted.
"However, as China's top power and grid operator,
this is our social responsibility. We have no choice
but to meet the basic power needs of rural residents,"
said Liu Zhenya, General Manager of the State Grid.
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