VEK to build electric power line to increase electricity exports to China
VLADIVOSTOK. Oct 7 (Interfax) - The Eastern Energy Compnay (VEK), a subsidiary of Inter RAO UES , plans to launch the construction of a 500-kilovolt electric power line before the end of 2009 to bring electricity exports to China to 4 billion - 5 billion kilowatt/hours, three-four times more than now.
Talks are currently underway with the federal grid company FSK UES on the terms of investing Inter RAO UES's own funds in the project, to ensure that construction begins in 2009, VEK's press service reported, citing VEK General Director Yury Sharov.
The company will also count on funding from Chinese financial institutions.
Chinese banks' participation in the project to increase electricity exports from Russia to China was earlier discussed by the Amur Region Governor Oleg Kozhemyako and Vice Chairman of China's State Committee for Development and Reform, Zhang Guobao, in Khabarovsk in September. This issue will be raised again in talks in Blagoveshchensk before the end of October.
The project to increase electricity exports from Russia to China is being implemented under a plan for strategic cooperation between the two countries, and it aims to increase electricity exports to Chinese consumers to 60 billion kilowatt/hours, annually, in 2009-20.
The project envisions the construction of new generating capacities, mostly coal dust power plants, to be based at Far Eastern coal fields, with an aggregate capacity of up to 10,800 megawatt, as well as alternating and direct current grids in China and Russia with a total length of 3,400 kilometers.
Electricity is being exported to China under a contract, signed by VEK and China's State Electricity Grid Corporation in February 2009.
Electricity exports are expected to amount to about 800 million kilowatt/hour by the end of 2009 and are likely to reach 1 billion - 1.2 billion kilowatt/hour in 2010.