China's largest ultra-high voltage cross-river power transmission project put into operation

NANJING -- China's largest ultra-high voltage (UHV) power transmission project across the Yangtze River, the longest river in the country, was completed and put into operation Sunday.

The 500-kV power transmission project, spanning 2,550 meters across the Yangtze, stretches from the city of Taizhou to Wuxi in East China's Jiangsu province, with a total length of 178 km and a total investment of over 1.5 billion yuan (about $207.6 million), according to the State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co., Ltd.

The project includes two power transmission towers measuring 385 meters high each, the tallest of their kind in the world. It is estimated that the maximum annual power transmission of the project can exceed 26 billion kWh, which is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of a medium-sized Chinese city.

It is expected to increase Jiangsu's cross-river power transmission capacity by 30 percent, greatly promoting the consumption of clean energy like offshore wind power in the Yangtze River Delta and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 10 million tonnes every year.

"We have overcome a series of technical difficulties and set many industry records. The overall project and the equipment were 100 percent Chinese-made," said project manager Chen Bing.