During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, more than RMB 5 trillion will be invested to expand the capacity of the West-to-East power transmission network to over 420 million kilowatts.

A New-Generation Power Grid: Stronger, Greener, and Smarter

  The power grid serves as the pivotal platform that connects electricity generation and consumption, and it is a core component of the new‑generation power system. As the share of renewable energy in the generation mix continues to rise and industrial transformation and upgrading accelerate, a stronger, greener, and smarter power grid has become an imperative of our times.

  During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China will vigorously advance the development of a new‑type power grid, with investments exceeding RMB 5 trillion, and expand the capacity of the west‑to‑east power transmission network to more than 420 million kilowatts. This will effectively meet electricity demand of 13.5 trillion kilowatt-hours, while supporting the achievement of the “dual carbon” goals and the building of an energy‑strong nation.

   Adapting to the energy transition and strengthening the safeguards for energy security.

  On the roof of the factory building of Zhejiang Yuyao Dafa Chemical Fiber Co., Ltd., 5,000 kilowatts of photovoltaic panels are neatly arranged.

  “The electricity generated by rooftop photovoltaic panels generally meets our production needs, but it is subject to fluctuations. We still rely on the main grid: when PV output is high, surplus power is fed back into the grid, and when generation falls short, the grid provides backup to ensure supply,” explained Shen Junyao, the company’s general manager.

  While large-scale deployment of new energy capacity is driving enterprises’ green development, it also poses challenges: photovoltaic power generation is highly dependent on weather conditions, with cloud cover and rainfall causing sharp drops in output. How can companies confidently rely on it to meet their production‑level electricity needs? And how can the grid cope with such volatile, fluctuating generation levels?

  From the perspective of the energy mix, building a new‑type power grid is an inevitable requirement for adapting to the transformation of the energy structure.

  By the end of 2025, China’s cumulative installed capacity of new energy will exceed 1.8 billion kilowatts, accounting for more than 40% of the total. China’s new energy sector has entered a phase of large-scale, high‑proportion development, with annual additions to installed capacity expected to remain at around 200 million kilowatts over the next decade.

  High electricity demand, a high share of renewable energy integration, and larger‑scale power transmission will bring profound changes to the structure and operational characteristics of China’s power system, posing significant challenges to grid development. “Traditional grids have been characterized by unidirectional power flow and passive adaptation; with the transformation of the energy mix, we now need to build a new grid architecture capable of flexibly accommodating a high proportion of renewables,” said Zhang Lin, Director of the Planning and Development Department of the China Electricity Council.

  From the perspective of energy distribution, building a new‑generation power grid is a strategic measure to fortify the nation’s energy security.

  The fundamental pattern of an inverse spatial distribution between China’s energy resources and load centers has persisted over the long term: resource abundance is concentrated in the western regions, while demand is heavily concentrated in the eastern regions, necessitating greater flexibility to address the spatial constraints on energy supply.

  “Building a new‑type power grid can further enhance the capacity for large‑scale, optimized allocation of energy resources, strengthen the grid’s resilience to risks, and improve its ability to ensure supply under extreme scenarios,” said Wang Xuesong, Director of the Comprehensive Strategic Planning Institute at the Power Industry Planning, Research, and Monitoring & Early‑Warning Center.

  Strengthen cross-regional interconnection and mutual support, and ensure the smooth large-scale allocation of energy resources.

  At the border of Fujian and Guangdong, nestled between mountains and sea, the Fujian–Guangdong interconnection converter station stands proudly in Yunxiao County, Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province. As a routine, two-way, mutually supportive transmission project spanning provinces and power grids, it has opened up an energy corridor linking the power systems of Fujian and Guangdong, becoming a pivotal hub for the interconnectedness of the new‑type power system along the southeastern coast.

  The project leverages the differing resource endowments of Fujian and Guangdong provinces, capitalizing on the seasonal peak‑shaving capabilities of hydropower and the mismatch between peak and off‑peak electricity demand to achieve complementary and mutually reinforcing regional power‑resource management. As of April this year, cumulative power transmission has exceeded 15.3 billion kWh.

  “During peak‑demand periods in summer and winter, we provide precise supplementary capacity to ensure reliable supply; and in the face of extreme weather events such as typhoons, the power grids of the two provinces serve as mutual backups,” explained Zeng Zhiyong, a specialist in the Business Section of the Marketing Department at China Southern Power Grid’s Guangdong Power Grid Company.

  The new power grid is innovative in its functional architecture.

  At present, a series of cross‑regional flexible power‑exchange projects are being implemented. By the end of 2025 or early 2026, five back‑to‑back DC transmission projects—linking Fujian and Jiangxi, Anhui and Hubei, Hunan and Guangdong, Chongqing and Guizhou, and Hunan and Guizhou—will be successively approved and commenced. These projects will play a crucial role in enhancing the ability to balance surplus and deficit power and to provide emergency support; once commissioned, they will increase inter‑provincial power‑exchange capacity by 15 million kilowatts.

  Wang Xuesong stated that the traditional power grid is planned and built according to administrative boundaries, whereas the new‑generation power grid strengthens interconnection and mutual support across regions and provinces, enabling the efficient allocation of energy resources over a wide area.

  The new power grid is innovative in its technological applications.

  In recent years, distributed photovoltaic development in Yuyao City has accelerated, with an installed capacity approaching 2 million kilowatts as of the end of April this year. Given the intermittent nature of solar power generation, how can grid‑supply balance be ensured?

  “Here at our ‘Main‑Distribution‑Substation Dispatch Decision Center,’ we can not only forecast solar irradiance trends in advance and detect subtle shifts in both power generation and consumption, thereby mitigating voltage fluctuations caused by photovoltaic variability, but also swiftly activate flexible load‑response measures—leveraging nearby energy storage or virtual power plants to provide mutual support and ensure the safe, stable operation of the grid,” said Ji Yanping, Director of the Control Center at State Grid Yuyao City Power Supply Company. He added that, by employing large‑scale AI models to predict photovoltaic output, the system now achieves an average daily accuracy exceeding 96%.

  “To fully ensure the integration of a high share of new energy sources and the safe, stable operation of the grid under extreme conditions, the next-generation power grid will extensively deploy digital and intelligent technologies, significantly enhancing its capabilities in sensing, decision-making, and control,” said Wang Xuesong.

  The backbone grid, the distribution grid, and the smart microgrid mutually support one another.

  Recently, a “stress test” was conducted in Dadaosha Village, Panyu District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province.

  By simulating transformer faults and disconnecting from the main grid, the system swiftly switched to autonomous operation in the smart microgrid, ensuring that power supply to 94 households remained as stable as ever. “With methanol‑based hydrogen energy serving as a backup power source, seamless switching keeps residents’ electricity supply steady,” said a distribution expert from the Guangzhou Panyu Power Supply Bureau of China Southern Power Grid.

  Dadaosha Island, where the village is located, lies at the mouth of the Pearl River. The island’s power supply faces numerous challenges: it relies solely on a single overhead transmission line crossing the river, with no backup circuit and a fragile grid structure; moreover, its geography—surrounded by water on all sides—makes fault diagnosis and emergency repairs particularly difficult at night or during inclement weather.

  To address the challenges of ensuring reliable power supply, island microgrids are being deployed: when the external grid is operational, the microgrid can participate in power sharing, peak shaving and valley filling, and loss reduction; in the event of an external grid outage, it can switch to islanded operation within milliseconds, swiftly restoring power.

  The “Guiding Opinions on Promoting High-Quality Development of the Power Grid,” issued at the end of last year, stipulate that by 2030, a new‑type power grid platform—featuring the main and distribution grids as its core infrastructure and smart microgrids as a complementary component—will be preliminarily established.

  “If the main power grid is the aorta of national energy resource allocation, and the distribution network serves as the pivotal node linking the main grid to end users, then the smart microgrid is a small, autonomous system that integrates distributed generation, energy storage, and loads, filling in the last‑mile gaps to enable localized micro‑circulation, facilitating the local development and on‑site consumption of new energy, and enhancing the reliability of power supply in remote areas and at the grid’s periphery. Together, these three components reinforce one another, jointly improving the grid’s safety, cost‑effectiveness, and flexibility,” said Wang Xuesong.

  Zhang Lin stated that the key to building a new‑type power grid lies in coordinated development among the main, distribution, and microgrids, with grid construction at all levels serving as the focal point, thereby establishing a grid development framework characterized by clear interfaces, comprehensive functionality, intelligent operations, and efficient interaction.

  Experts recommend that, on the main grid front, cross‑provincial and interregional transmission corridors be planned and built in an orderly manner, with demand as the guiding principle, to scientifically optimize the nationwide flow of electric power. On the distribution grid side, priority should be given to enhancing supply reliability, overall capacity, and disaster‑resilience, while advancing the transformation of distribution networks into efficient resource‑allocation platforms for bidirectional interaction among generation, grid, load, and storage. As for smart microgrids, development should adhere to site‑specific conditions, achieving local self‑balancing, self‑regulation, and self‑safety, and gradually increasing the share of locally generated and consumed renewable energy.

  Tan Hongjiang, Deputy Director-General of the Electricity Department of the National Energy Administration, stated that work is underway to develop an implementation plan for the planning and construction of a new‑type power grid during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, with the aim of achieving, by 2030, the preliminary establishment of a secure and reliable, green and low‑carbon, robust and resilient, and smart and flexible new‑type power grid.

  (Reporters Wang Yunsong and Dou Hao, with contributions from Xue Ziyi)

  People’s Daily (May 29, 2026, Page 02)