China's Million Volt Energy Super Highway - to be part of Belt and Road (CPEC) - Changing energy forever!
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China’s State Grid Corp Crushes Power Transmission Records
By Peter Fairley
Posted 10 Jan 2019 | 17:00 GMT
Photo: TBEAChina's TBEA set up manufacturing in Xinjiang to ease delivery of the giant transformers State Grid required, seen here.
China’s primary grid operator has energized its biggest and most powerful line yet, a 1.1-million-volt direct current (DC) behemoth that crushes world records for voltage, distance and power.
The new ultra-high voltage DC (UHVDC) line built by Beijing-based State Grid Corporation of China can transmit up to 12 gigawatts. That is enough to power 50 million Chinese households, according to a statement issued in Chinese by State Grid last week, and 50 percent more than most of the 800-kilovolt UHVDC lines that State Grid has built over the past decade.
The new 1100-kv UHVDC line absorbs the grid’s alternating current at an AC/DC converter station near the capitol of Xinjiang—China's vast northwestern territory—and sends DC power to a second converter station in Anhui province in eastern China. That 3,293 kilometer run extends power transmission’s distance record by over 900 kms.
State Grid dubs it the “Power Silk Road” in its statement because it follows the eponymous ancient route’s path through northwest China’s Hexi Corridor and can replace the equivalent of 25,000 coal trains’ worth of coal-fired generation in China’s heavily polluted eastern cities. In addition to battling air pollution, it could also deliver a hefty reduction in greenhouse gas emissions if State Grid prioritizes export of the northwest’s abundant solar and wind power.
Suggested Wiley-IEEE Reading
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Jin Zhang, a senior engineer and deputy division head in State Grid’s DC transmission project department, told IEEE Spectrum during interviews in Beijing last year that State Grid began developing 1100-kv UHVDC technology more than a decade ago. They recognized, he said, that China would need to transfer power farther over distances that would incur large losses on 800-kv lines.
Early risk-benefit studies identified 1100-kv as the optimal next step, said Zhang, in part because of the big AC transformers that mediate between the converter stations and the surrounding AC grids. Installing a smaller number of large transformers is most cost-effective, he said, but for a 1200-kv converter station such transformers might be impossible to deliver from factories.
Photo: TBEATBEA's transformer prepped to hit the road in Xinjiang in June 2018.
The transformers at State Grid’s newly-energized 1100-kv converter stations are movable, but they are hardly small. Zurich-based ABB, which provided some of the new line’s components along with Munich-based Siemens and a number of Chinese suppliers, says transformers it built for State Grid’s project weigh 800 metric tons, and stretch to 37 meters in length. One of State Grid’s domestic suppliers, TBEA, set up UHV transformer manufacturing in Xinjiang to minimize transport costs.
Supersizing was also required for other 1100-kv components, such as power lines and transmission towers, to manage the system’s unprecedented electromagnetic fields. Magnus Callavik, general manager of Beijing-based ABB Sifang Power System Co., a joint venture that provided one set of AC/DC converters for the new line, says the 300-kv jump from 800-kv required a “completely new” design.
“It sounds like you’re only adding an incremental part,” Callavik said. “But it’s very challenging for insulation design, structure and weight of the whole design, [plus] system aspects such as how you integrate with the transformer and other systems.”
Photo: ABBBushings to safely convey 12 gigawatts of DC power through walls at the world's first 1100-kv converter stations.
Zhang pointed to the bushings that carry DC power between each station’s electronic converters, housed indoors, and the UHVDC transmission lines outside. The bushings keep electricity from flashing over to the converter halls’ walls. With the step up from 800-kV, Zhang said they grew by half a meter to roughly 1.3 meters in diameter and from under 20 meters in length to over 30 meters. “Higher voltage means higher impulse levels, mainly during switching. So we need longer air clearances,” said Zhang.
UHVDC technology is seen by Chinese president Xi Jinping as a key technology for his “Belt and Road” international development program. And at the UN’s 2015 Sustainable Development Summit Xi proposed the construction of intercontinental power links to massively scale-up cross-border sharing of renewable energy.
But UHVDC also has an important role to play domestically, where Xi has promised to turn China’s skies blue again. Specifically, Xi has committed to ending rampant wastage of renewable power generation, whereby wind, solar and hydro power plants are deliberately shut off due to grid capacity and stability limits or to simply make room for coal-fired generation.
State Grid’s new 1100-kv line could help reduce renewable energy curtailment because Xinjiang’s wind and solar power plants are among China’s largest and also the country’s most heavily curtailed. More than one-fifth of Xinjiang’s solar generating potential and one-quarter of its wind power was squandered in 2017, according to Chinese government statistics. Sending that power to eastern China instead of wasting it would help State Grid meet Xi’s promise to shrink curtailment to less than 5 percent in all regions by 2020.
State Grid is working hard to meet that goal, according to Zhang. While 12-gigawatts of new coal power generation was planned along with State Grid’s 1100-kv UHVDC project, Zhang told Spectrum that many of the anticipated plants were cancelled. “At least more than half will be renewable power,” he said of the power exports the new line will carry.
One more question hangs over the impact of State Grid’s 1100-kv technology: whether its massive power flows can be safely integrated with China’s congested eastern grids. Challenges associated with absorbing power injected by big DC lines led to the break-up of China’s southern grid in 2016. State Grid is counting on another major UHV innovation — its growing network of 1000-kv AC lines — to solve that problem.
By Peter Fairley
Posted 10 Jan 2019 | 17:00 GMT
China’s primary grid operator has energized its biggest and most powerful line yet, a 1.1-million-volt direct current (DC) behemoth that crushes world records for voltage, distance and power.
The new ultra-high voltage DC (UHVDC) line built by Beijing-based State Grid Corporation of China can transmit up to 12 gigawatts. That is enough to power 50 million Chinese households, according to a statement issued in Chinese by State Grid last week, and 50 percent more than most of the 800-kilovolt UHVDC lines that State Grid has built over the past decade.
The new 1100-kv UHVDC line absorbs the grid’s alternating current at an AC/DC converter station near the capitol of Xinjiang—China's vast northwestern territory—and sends DC power to a second converter station in Anhui province in eastern China. That 3,293 kilometer run extends power transmission’s distance record by over 900 kms.
State Grid dubs it the “Power Silk Road” in its statement because it follows the eponymous ancient route’s path through northwest China’s Hexi Corridor and can replace the equivalent of 25,000 coal trains’ worth of coal-fired generation in China’s heavily polluted eastern cities. In addition to battling air pollution, it could also deliver a hefty reduction in greenhouse gas emissions if State Grid prioritizes export of the northwest’s abundant solar and wind power.
Suggested Wiley-IEEE Reading
Doubly Fed Induction Machine: Modeling and Control for Wind Energy Generation Applications
Jin Zhang, a senior engineer and deputy division head in State Grid’s DC transmission project department, told IEEE Spectrum during interviews in Beijing last year that State Grid began developing 1100-kv UHVDC technology more than a decade ago. They recognized, he said, that China would need to transfer power farther over distances that would incur large losses on 800-kv lines.
Early risk-benefit studies identified 1100-kv as the optimal next step, said Zhang, in part because of the big AC transformers that mediate between the converter stations and the surrounding AC grids. Installing a smaller number of large transformers is most cost-effective, he said, but for a 1200-kv converter station such transformers might be impossible to deliver from factories.
The transformers at State Grid’s newly-energized 1100-kv converter stations are movable, but they are hardly small. Zurich-based ABB, which provided some of the new line’s components along with Munich-based Siemens and a number of Chinese suppliers, says transformers it built for State Grid’s project weigh 800 metric tons, and stretch to 37 meters in length. One of State Grid’s domestic suppliers, TBEA, set up UHV transformer manufacturing in Xinjiang to minimize transport costs.
Supersizing was also required for other 1100-kv components, such as power lines and transmission towers, to manage the system’s unprecedented electromagnetic fields. Magnus Callavik, general manager of Beijing-based ABB Sifang Power System Co., a joint venture that provided one set of AC/DC converters for the new line, says the 300-kv jump from 800-kv required a “completely new” design.
“It sounds like you’re only adding an incremental part,” Callavik said. “But it’s very challenging for insulation design, structure and weight of the whole design, [plus] system aspects such as how you integrate with the transformer and other systems.”
Zhang pointed to the bushings that carry DC power between each station’s electronic converters, housed indoors, and the UHVDC transmission lines outside. The bushings keep electricity from flashing over to the converter halls’ walls. With the step up from 800-kV, Zhang said they grew by half a meter to roughly 1.3 meters in diameter and from under 20 meters in length to over 30 meters. “Higher voltage means higher impulse levels, mainly during switching. So we need longer air clearances,” said Zhang.
UHVDC technology is seen by Chinese president Xi Jinping as a key technology for his “Belt and Road” international development program. And at the UN’s 2015 Sustainable Development Summit Xi proposed the construction of intercontinental power links to massively scale-up cross-border sharing of renewable energy.
But UHVDC also has an important role to play domestically, where Xi has promised to turn China’s skies blue again. Specifically, Xi has committed to ending rampant wastage of renewable power generation, whereby wind, solar and hydro power plants are deliberately shut off due to grid capacity and stability limits or to simply make room for coal-fired generation.
State Grid’s new 1100-kv line could help reduce renewable energy curtailment because Xinjiang’s wind and solar power plants are among China’s largest and also the country’s most heavily curtailed. More than one-fifth of Xinjiang’s solar generating potential and one-quarter of its wind power was squandered in 2017, according to Chinese government statistics. Sending that power to eastern China instead of wasting it would help State Grid meet Xi’s promise to shrink curtailment to less than 5 percent in all regions by 2020.
State Grid is working hard to meet that goal, according to Zhang. While 12-gigawatts of new coal power generation was planned along with State Grid’s 1100-kv UHVDC project, Zhang told Spectrum that many of the anticipated plants were cancelled. “At least more than half will be renewable power,” he said of the power exports the new line will carry.
One more question hangs over the impact of State Grid’s 1100-kv technology: whether its massive power flows can be safely integrated with China’s congested eastern grids. Challenges associated with absorbing power injected by big DC lines led to the break-up of China’s southern grid in 2016. State Grid is counting on another major UHV innovation — its growing network of 1000-kv AC lines — to solve that problem.
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China’s mega transmission lines
By Molly Lempriere
The State Grid Corporation of China has announced it is building a 1.1 million volt transmission line that will be able to deliver the output of 12 large power plants over 2,000 miles.
The project is the first of its kind in the world, and a big step in the company’s plans to stitch together the grids of neighbouring nations into a supergrid.
How will the project work and what does it mean for China’s influence in the region?
By Molly Lempriere
The State Grid Corporation of China has announced it is building a 1.1 million volt transmission line that will be able to deliver the output of 12 large power plants over 2,000 miles.
The project is the first of its kind in the world, and a big step in the company’s plans to stitch together the grids of neighbouring nations into a supergrid.
How will the project work and what does it mean for China’s influence in the region?
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China’s Global Supergrid to Enable Free Flow of Electricity Internationally
By Latham & Watkins LLP on September 14, 2018
Posted in Air Quality and Climate Change, China, Power, Oil, Gas and Minerals, Project Siting and Approval
The proposed initiative will allow the provision of clean energy on a global scale by 2050.
By Paul A. Davies and R. Andrew Westgate
The Global Energy Interconnection (GEI) initiative, originally developed by Liu Zhenya, the chairman of the Chinese State Grid Corporation, is dedicated to promoting global energy interconnections in a sustainable manner.
The GEI is proposed to take the form of a backbone grid, first throughout Asia and then expanding globally. The first phase would consist of six ultra-high voltage grids that span the Asian continent, which GEI estimates will require a US$38 trillion investment.[1]
The GEI is part of the broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI is a Chinese state-backed program that intends to boost trade and economic growth across Asia through the development of infrastructure projects. China Development Bank, China’s primary policy-based lending institution, has already granted US$160 billion in loans to countries involved in the BRI process.
The GEI is the first major BRI proposal that has come to fruition, and now has backing from various international energy corporations and infrastructure manufacturers, including the Korea Electric Power Company, the Chinese State Grid Corporation, and PSJC Rosseti.
Historically, the idea of a global “supergrid” was first proposed by the renowned 20th century inventor, Buckminster Fuller. Fuller was an advocate of building a global energy grid that would allow energy resources to be distributed around the world. Various proposals for a supergrid were discussed by the United States and also by the former Soviet Union, but none proceeded beyond the conceptual phase. The GEI, however, appears to be a far more comprehensive attempt to realise the concept of a supergrid.
The supergrid concept faces a number of significant technological, political, and economic challenges. However, China is well-placed to lead this initiative, as the country already possesses a number of advanced technologies to put the GEI scheme into practice. Chinese capabilities in this area include: high-voltage electricity transmission, hydro-electric engineering, and other renewable energy sources. The provision of such methods of energy generation would allow clean power globally and could significantly reduce energy tariffs for different nations. The GEI reportedly has the potential to reach 720 gigawatts of transboundary power by 2050, which represents a significant portion of the energy needs of a developing country. Accordingly, the development of the GEI merits global attention.
Latham will continue to monitor the progress of the GEI.
This blog was prepared with the assistance of Olivia Featherstone in the London office of Latham & Watkins.
[1] http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-03/28/c_137072515.htm
By Latham & Watkins LLP on September 14, 2018
Posted in Air Quality and Climate Change, China, Power, Oil, Gas and Minerals, Project Siting and Approval
The proposed initiative will allow the provision of clean energy on a global scale by 2050.
By Paul A. Davies and R. Andrew Westgate
The Global Energy Interconnection (GEI) initiative, originally developed by Liu Zhenya, the chairman of the Chinese State Grid Corporation, is dedicated to promoting global energy interconnections in a sustainable manner.
The GEI is proposed to take the form of a backbone grid, first throughout Asia and then expanding globally. The first phase would consist of six ultra-high voltage grids that span the Asian continent, which GEI estimates will require a US$38 trillion investment.[1]
The GEI is part of the broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI is a Chinese state-backed program that intends to boost trade and economic growth across Asia through the development of infrastructure projects. China Development Bank, China’s primary policy-based lending institution, has already granted US$160 billion in loans to countries involved in the BRI process.
The GEI is the first major BRI proposal that has come to fruition, and now has backing from various international energy corporations and infrastructure manufacturers, including the Korea Electric Power Company, the Chinese State Grid Corporation, and PSJC Rosseti.
Historically, the idea of a global “supergrid” was first proposed by the renowned 20th century inventor, Buckminster Fuller. Fuller was an advocate of building a global energy grid that would allow energy resources to be distributed around the world. Various proposals for a supergrid were discussed by the United States and also by the former Soviet Union, but none proceeded beyond the conceptual phase. The GEI, however, appears to be a far more comprehensive attempt to realise the concept of a supergrid.
The supergrid concept faces a number of significant technological, political, and economic challenges. However, China is well-placed to lead this initiative, as the country already possesses a number of advanced technologies to put the GEI scheme into practice. Chinese capabilities in this area include: high-voltage electricity transmission, hydro-electric engineering, and other renewable energy sources. The provision of such methods of energy generation would allow clean power globally and could significantly reduce energy tariffs for different nations. The GEI reportedly has the potential to reach 720 gigawatts of transboundary power by 2050, which represents a significant portion of the energy needs of a developing country. Accordingly, the development of the GEI merits global attention.
Latham will continue to monitor the progress of the GEI.
This blog was prepared with the assistance of Olivia Featherstone in the London office of Latham & Watkins.
[1] http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-03/28/c_137072515.htm
Krptonite
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That's very encouraging news. Energy availability remains a key component in rapid urbanisation and development.
However, concern points would be the pricing and how such lines would be transversed through the rocky, elevated Himalayas. They act as a natural barrier for connectivity projects.
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Great point... It will take significant investment in resources and political commitment to overcome the geological challenges that the Himalayas pose. Not only is that region a natural barrier, it's surface conditions are unstable made up of unconsolidated rocks and an active seismic area.
Krptonite
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That will drive the cost up even further. At that point won't it make more sense to go for hydro powered plants for states on this side of the Himalayas. The river tributary system in this area holds immense potential for such projects.
On the other hand, states to the north of China could gain immensely from such projects. Russia could use more infrastructure in its far east and Mongolia is basically one large steppe, ideal for power lines.
On the southern end, cambodia, Vietnam and to an extent Myanmar and Thailand could also derive benefits if the political environment allows it. But since these states have low income per capita pricing would be a sensitive issue for them.
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