The new round of power grid investment roadmap is clarified

The power grid is a hub connecting electricity generation and consumption, serving as a core component in accelerating the development of a new power system. This year, the government work report emphasizes building a new power system and speeding up smart grid construction. Previously, State Grid announced a 4 trillion yuan investment plan, a 40% increase over the “14th Five-Year Plan.” Combined with investments from Southern Power Grid and local grids, China’s total grid investment during the 15th Five-Year Plan period is expected to surpass 5 trillion yuan. Why is there a further push to strengthen grid construction? Where will this record-breaking grid investment be directed?

The Power System Is Becoming Increasingly Complex

During the 14th Five-Year Plan, China built the world’s largest, most advanced, and widest-reaching transmission network, strongly supporting high-quality economic and social development. In terms of large-scale resource allocation, China has completed and put into operation 45 ultra-high-voltage transmission channels—24 DC and 21 AC—forming a “high-speed electricity highway” across east-west and north-south directions. Currently, the nationwide “West-to-East Power Transmission” capacity reaches 340 million kilowatts, effectively optimizing the country’s electricity resource distribution.

In terms of power security and supply capacity, the main grid framework in ultra-high-voltage (UHV) regions continues to improve, and distribution network reliability and capacity are steadily increasing. This effectively supports an annual addition of 80 million kilowatts of new electricity demand, ensuring a reliable supply of power amounting to the total consumption of the US, EU, and Japan combined, with no large-scale blackouts for consecutive years.

In promoting green and low-carbon energy transformation, China’s grid has become the world’s largest platform for renewable energy absorption, supporting over 1.8 billion kilowatts of renewable energy integration and efficient consumption, helping to exceed 20% non-fossil fuel energy consumption by 2025.

Grid development is not a one-time effort. As electricity demand continues to rise, renewable energy integration accelerates, and urban-rural power quality improves, a stronger, greener, and smarter grid has become an inevitable requirement of the times. Liu Mingyang, Deputy Director of the Power Department at the National Energy Administration, stated, “Future power systems will feature high renewable penetration, high power electronicization, and high supply-demand randomness, presenting greater complexity and unpredictability, which will pose new demands on grid development.”

Zhang Lin, Director of Planning and Development at the China Electricity Council, also believes that the clear electrification trend in energy production and consumption, along with rigid future power demand growth, increasing renewable energy share, and rapid cross-provincial power transmission, will bring new challenges such as system stability risks and insufficient safety capacity. There is an urgent need for scientific planning and systematic development of the grid’s future direction and construction pathways.

Collaborative Development of Main, Distribution, and Microgrids

How can the next round of grid investment be targeted effectively?

According to the “Guiding Opinions on Promoting High-Quality Grid Development” jointly issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration, by 2030, a new type of grid platform featuring a robust backbone grid and distribution network as essential foundations, supplemented by intelligent microgrids, will be initially established. The ability to optimize resource allocation will be significantly enhanced, with “West-to-East Power Transmission” exceeding 420 million kilowatts, inter-provincial power exchange capacity increasing by about 40 million kilowatts, and renewable energy generation accounting for around 30%.

This means that the next focus of grid construction is to foster a new pattern of coordinated development among main, distribution, and microgrids, ensuring that each component—“main arteries,” “capillaries,” and “microcirculation”—performs its role efficiently and collaboratively. The main grid will focus on “strengthening the backbone, ensuring safety, and maintaining circulation,” continuing to serve as the “ballast” of power supply and the “aorta” of resource dispatch, solidifying the fundamental safety of power supply, and reinforcing the physical foundation of a unified national electricity market to support the broad deployment of clean energy resources.

It is understood that this year, State Grid will accelerate grid construction, starting projects such as the Zhejiang UHV AC ring network, Panzhihua UHV AC, and advancing UHV projects like Datong–Huailai–Tianjin South, Aba–Chengdu East, Mengxi–Jing-Jin-Ji, and the 750 kV substation in Karamay.

Distribution networks will focus on “strengthening foundations, enhancing capacity, and promoting interaction,” reinforcing coupling with the main grid, supporting diversified sources and load access, enabling bidirectional interaction, and promoting the rational development of distributed renewable energy, thereby comprehensively improving power supply reliability.

On March 1, a rare snowstorm hit Changzhi, Shanxi. During the storm, 120 transmission lines, 619 ring network cabinets, and 797 public transformers in the city operated normally, achieving “zero tripping, zero flickering, zero complaints.”

What underpins this strong urban power supply capacity? Wang Yusen, Deputy Director of Operations and Maintenance at State Grid Changzhi Power Supply Company, explained that the company’s core strategy is building an “unstoppable power grid.” By 2025, they plan to standardize line construction and upgrade old equipment, successfully completing the standardization of 18 line connections within the city, significantly improving load distribution and boosting transfer capacity. To address aging equipment, they are accelerating distribution network upgrades, raising cableization rates to 95%, and nearly eliminating overhead lines on main streets. They are also tackling issues like aging 10 kV switchgear and low automation levels, enabling fault information to be directly transmitted for quick repairs, and dramatically improving fault localization, isolation, and power restoration efficiency.

Building a new type of grid platform is a gradual process. Liu Mingyang said that efforts will be made to promote appropriately advanced grid construction, strengthen key project element guarantees, accelerate project pre-work, and increase investments at all levels to contribute to the development of a new energy system and the modernization of China.

Comprehensive Planning and Upgrades

With rapid advances in digital technology, creating a digitally intelligent and resilient power grid—fully utilizing digital and smart technologies to upgrade grid functions, operations, and services—has become an essential path to ensuring national energy security and accelerating the transition to clean, low-carbon energy.

In February, in Fuyang, Anhui, a distribution network line was affected by foreign objects falling onto transformers, causing over 30 transformers on main line No. 7 to trip. The system automatically identified the fault, initiated automatic isolation, and quickly restored power to non-fault areas, completing load transfer within just one minute. Compared to previous manual troubleshooting that took hours, this greatly reduced blackout scope and duration, significantly improving reliability.

Chen Bin, head of the Smart Distribution Network Department at Fuyang Power Supply Company, said that through large-scale deployment of intelligent terminals and advanced distribution automation applications, Fuyang’s distribution network has achieved high-quality intelligent development, forming a smart sensing distribution network covering urban and rural areas. Real-time data on load, equipment status, and faults are transmitted, shifting dispatching from manual to panoramic, precise analysis, enabling automatic fault isolation and rapid re-energization of non-fault areas, with a leap in power supply reliability.

The “Guiding Opinions” propose promoting AI and digital technology to empower grid development. This includes integrating digital technology and data elements into grid operations, deepening AI applications in planning, equipment management, regulation, service, and security. Combining advanced technologies like quantum communication, IoT sensing, 5G-A/6G, and others will expand application scenarios in the power sector.

Academician Guo Jianbo of the Chinese Academy of Engineering believes that with the rapid development of deep learning and AI, digital empowerment of the power sector—achieving informatization, digitalization, and intelligence—is an inevitable trend for the future development of new power systems.

Despite the huge investments, experts emphasize the need for prudence. The next round of grid investment must ensure every yuan is well spent. Avoid overemphasizing hardware at the expense of software, and simultaneously improve software systems, market mechanisms, and dispatching systems to achieve coordinated development of hardware and software. Be vigilant against inefficiency and resource waste caused by uncoordinated planning and inconsistent standards; prioritize projects that benefit the people, such as old neighborhoods, rural areas, and remote regions, so that the benefits of grid development reach all citizens.