Siemens to build high-voltage power line from Yunnan to Guangdong

Siemens China has won a contract worth EUR 300 mm ($ 402.5 mm) to build a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) power line with China Southern Power Grid Co. between the Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Guangdong, a Siemens Power Transmission and Distribution Group (PTD) marketing official said.
The HVDC power line will stretch 1,400 km in length and link south-western Yunnan Province to the power-thirsty Pearl River delta cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, Li Weiqing, a marketing official at PTD, a Siemens China subsidiary, said.

Scheduled to commence commercial operation in mid-2010, the HVDC power line will have a power transmission capacity of 5,000 MW and a transmission voltage of 800 kV, according to Siemens China. Siemens China's power-focused business unit, PTD, will construct the HVDC power line in cooperation with China Southern Power Grid, a Guandong Province-based Fortune 500 company.
The company also noted that by minimizing electricity loss in transmission, the HVDC power line will save over 30 mm tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year. PTD currently has four long-distance HVDC power lines in operation or in the planning stage in China, three of which link with Guangdong Province.

The company's first HVDC line links the Tianshengqiao region in south-western China with the city of Guangzhou. In service since June 2001, the power line has a transmission capacity of 1,800 MW.
The second power line, with a transmission capacity of 3,000 MW, links the cities of Anshun in Guizhou Province and Zhaoqing in Guangdong Province and has been in operation since September 2004.

Its third power line, the "Guizhou-Guangdong II" project, is currently under construction and will begin operations by the end of this year.
PTD's fourth long-distance HVDC power line links the Gezhouba hydropower to Shanghai. Beginning operation in 1989, the line is 1,040 km in length and has a power transmission capacity of 1,200 MW.