en.Wedoany.com Reported - On June 30, after 669 days of round-the-clock effort, the 750 kV third channel power transmission and transformation project from northern Shaanxi to Guanzhong, with an investment of 7.132 billion yuan and a total length of 1,271 kilometers, commenced operation.
This thousand-kilometer power corridor, starting from the 750 kV Shuofang Substation in Yulin and ending at the 750 kV Bailuyuan Substation in Xi'an, is the largest investment, longest line, most participating construction teams, and most technically challenging super project in the history of Shaanxi's power grid construction. With the full line's completion and operation, Shaanxi's 750 kV main grid structure has achieved a historic leap from a "日"-shape to a "田"-shape. The province's "north-to-south power transmission" capacity has surged from 6.3 GW to over 9 GW. High-quality wind and solar green electricity from northern Shaanxi flows smoothly southward, paving a new energy corridor that runs north-south, is green and low-carbon, and supports the high-quality development of the Sanqin region.
Anchoring National Priorities
Resolving the North-South Energy Imbalance
Energy security is a national priority, and green transformation is an imperative of our times. As a key hub of the Belt and Road Initiative, Shaanxi has long faced an inverse energy distribution pattern where resources are concentrated in the north and load centers in the south, severely hindering the full release of the province's energy benefits.
On the northern Shaanxi plateau, where winds shift with the seasons and sunlight illuminates the mountains and rivers, vast wind farms and photovoltaic arrays stretch for thousands of miles. The installed capacity of new energy has exceeded 30 GW, making it a national-level green energy base. In the Guanzhong Plain, with its dense urban clusters and high industrial agglomeration, the Xi'an metropolitan area drives the province's economic development. The demand for electricity for urban and rural livelihoods and advanced manufacturing production has been rising year by year.
Before this project's operation, there were only two 750 kV transmission channels from northern Shaanxi to Guanzhong, with a maximum transmission capacity of only 6.3 GW. Constrained by channel bottlenecks, tens of gigawatts of clean electricity from northern Shaanxi faced the dilemma of being "generated but not transmitted," making it difficult to translate its unique resource advantages into tangible economic benefits. Meanwhile, the Guanzhong region, during peak summer and winter periods, saw continuously rising electricity consumption peaks, placing immense pressure on supply security and affecting residents' electricity experience and continuous enterprise production. With the deepening of the "dual carbon" goals and the accelerated construction of a new-type power system, strengthening the backbone grid and unblocking the north-south transmission bottleneck is both a strategic move to serve national energy security and a practical matter concerning thousands of households and supporting long-term development.
With strong support from governments at all levels in Shaanxi Province and the coordinated deployment of State Grid Shaanxi Electric Power Co., Ltd., this major project was born out of necessity. The project system is massive and complete, encompassing the construction of the new Nanniwan 750 kV Switching Station, the expansion of bays at the Shuofang, Bailuyuan, and Luochuan 750 kV substations, and the erection of three sections of 750 kV lines. The line traverses 18 districts and counties across 4 cities—Yulin, Yan'an, Weinan, and Xi'an—erecting 2,156 towers and spanning 1,271 kilometers through mountains and valleys, connecting the north and south.
Now, with the opening of the third 750 kV transmission channel from northern Shaanxi to Guanzhong, the power transmission capacity from northern Shaanxi to Guanzhong and southern Shaanxi has been enhanced to over 9 GW. It can deliver approximately 18 billion kWh of clean electricity to the Guanzhong region annually, reducing raw coal consumption by about 7 million tons and cutting CO2 emissions by approximately 14 million tons, equivalent to planting 760 million trees. Connecting the industrial income growth and resource conversion of the old revolutionary base area in northern Shaanxi on one end, and safeguarding the lights of thousands of households and stable enterprise production in Guanzhong on the other, this thousand-kilometer silver line carries the profound mission of ensuring energy security, improving people's livelihoods, promoting regional coordination, and practicing low-carbon development.
Battling Rugged Terrain
Tackling the Hardest Nuts in Construction
Traveling along the route of the 750 kV third channel power transmission and transformation project from northern Shaanxi to Guanzhong, the 1,271-kilometer line winds through the gullies, ridges, and hills of the Loess Plateau and the dense transportation and power corridors of Guanzhong. The combination of complex terrain, massive land acquisition and relocation, and intensive high-risk operations destined it to be a tough battle from the very start.
To crack this hard nut, State Grid Shaanxi Electric Power mobilized 4 engineering design units, 2 supervision units, and 14 construction units. Over 10,000 builders from all over the country converged on the Sanqin region, launching a cross-regional, long-front campaign.
At the construction sites, extreme challenges were everywhere. The northern section traverses the edge of the Mu Us Sandy Land, making foundation construction difficult. The central section features Class IV heavily collapsible loess, which is highly prone to subsidence upon contact with water, leaving very little margin for error. The southern section passes through dense transportation arteries and important power corridors in Guanzhong. The entire line completed 7 railway crossings, 18 expressway crossings, and 170 crossings of 35 kV and above transmission lines, among other high-risk special operations. Cross-construction was extensive, and safety control was difficult. Additionally, the line passes through multiple districts and counties, involving lengthy procedures for forestland approval, land acquisition, and crop compensation, requiring significant effort in multi-party coordination.
Despite countless difficulties, only action can overcome them. State Grid Shaanxi Electric Power innovated its management and organization model, forming a flexible team for early-stage management and establishing regional owner project departments to optimize management processes, improve management efficiency and quality, and efficiently advance preliminary procedures. Deeply implementing the "government-led, enterprise-implemented" approach, a three-tier provincial, city, and county government-enterprise linkage was established. The Provincial Development and Reform Commission listed the project as a key provincial project for regular scheduling, establishing mechanisms for dedicated team advancement, difficulty consultation, and problem resolution. Local governments issued detailed documents to optimize the approval process for power grid construction, laying a solid foundation for the project's commissioning.
Facing the challenge of foundation treatment in sandy terrain, the team pioneered the "sand permafrost composite foundation reinforcement technology." For the collapsible loess problem, the construction team "embroidered on the loess," using millimeter-level layered backfill, dynamic compaction, and lime-soil compaction pile composite techniques to strictly control foundation settlement within 5 millimeters.
"The hardest part was in January this year, when the temperature dropped to minus 26 degrees Celsius. Even with the heater in the tent turned up to maximum, there was still a layer of frost on the quilt. At 6 a.m., I crawled out of the tent to inspect the site, and my eyelashes were covered in ice crystals," recalled Wang Nanxiang of Shaanxi Power Transmission and Transformation Company. In the high-altitude work area in Jia County, northern Shaanxi, with extremely low winter temperatures and biting winds, Wang Nanxiang and his colleagues held their ground for over 400 days. Over 10,000 builders treated the construction site as their home, accompanied by the stars and moon, enduring severe cold, scorching heat, wind, and rain while ensuring quality, forging a high-quality project with unwavering responsibility.
Technology-Empowered Construction
Creating a New Benchmark for Smart Grids
This project adhered to the integrated advancement of technological innovation, intelligent construction, and green construction. It deployed domestically produced core equipment and digital control methods on a large scale, using technology to solve on-site pain points and establishing a new benchmark for intelligent construction in Shaanxi's 750 kV power grid.
A landmark breakthrough was achieved in equipment localization. As a demonstration project for the deployment of domestically produced high-end power equipment, it was the first to pilot the application of domestically produced closing resistors in a 750 kV project in China, achieving independent controllability and domestic substitution for core high-end power components. This not only enhanced the grid's fault resilience and system stability but also drove the iterative upgrade of China's power equipment industry chain, contributing to technological self-reliance in the power sector.
Digital control unblocked bottlenecks in on-site management. A multifunctional safety vehicle was introduced, leveraging the AI-powered "Smart Learning Hall" system to conduct vivid and diverse real-time training, bridging the "last mile" of safety training in infrastructure projects. Drones shuttled among the silver lines and towers for automatic inspection and acceptance, with the AI system locking parameters and marking data in real-time. All 2,156 towers have their own exclusive "digital ID cards," allowing all information to be viewed by scanning a QR code, enabling one-click traceability and verification. A digital twin system accurately replicated the entire line's 3D panorama at a 1:1 scale, dynamically updating the construction progress along the entire route, shifting from "post-event rectification" to "pre-event prevention." A big data + AI comprehensive control platform transformed the complex project from extensive management to one where progress is visible, risks are controllable, and quality is traceable.
Intelligent construction has turned the thousand-kilometer transmission project into a "digital organism" that can be precisely managed. It is understood that the comprehensive intelligent construction and full-chain digital control model was applied for the first time in Shaanxi's power grid construction, creating a smart new benchmark for the high-quality development of provincial power infrastructure.
Grid Transformation and Upgrade
Activating Green Development Momentum in Sanqin
After 669 days of relentless effort, the thousand-kilometer silver line has become a thoroughfare. The commissioning of the 750 kV third channel power transmission and transformation project from northern Shaanxi to Guanzhong marks the formal formation of Shaanxi's "three vertical, three horizontal" 750 kV backbone grid structure, elevating the province's power resource optimization and allocation capabilities to a new level.
The grid structure has undergone a historic reshaping. The cross-section bottleneck that long restricted the export of new energy from northern Shaanxi has been completely broken. The stable backbone grid creates conditions for the orderly decommissioning of old coal-fired power plants in Guanzhong and the continuous optimization of the power source structure, allowing hydropower and pumped storage stations in southern Shaanxi to participate in peak shaving as a cluster. The stable north-south channel supports the long-term full-power export of the Shaanxi-Anhui UHV line, integrating clean green electricity from northern Shaanxi into the national unified electricity market and continuously amplifying Shaanxi's hub value in the national "West-to-East Power Transmission" strategy.
The energy transition is accelerating at a Shaanxi pace. The development potential of the gigawatt-level northern Shaanxi new energy base is being fully unleashed. The advantages in wind and solar resources are rapidly transforming into industrial and economic advantages, driving the clustering and implementation of upstream and downstream new energy industries, and promoting local employment and income growth for people in the old revolutionary base areas. Low-cost, clean electricity is stably transmitted to the load center in Guanzhong, reducing electricity costs for industrial enterprises, optimizing the province's power source structure, lowering carbon emission intensity, and providing solid support for Shaanxi to build a new-type power system and achieve the "dual carbon" goals.
Supply security capabilities have been comprehensively upgraded. As the top project for Shaanxi's power grid to meet peak summer demand, the project's operation has significantly improved the reliability of power supply in key areas of Guanzhong, effectively resolving the peak electricity gap during the hot summer months, ensuring stable power for people's livelihoods and industrial production, and safeguarding the continuous expansion of Shaanxi's advanced manufacturing and high-tech industries. A single silver line connects the north and south, forming a win-win pattern, fully demonstrating the livelihood value of major project construction.
From the forest of wind turbines on the Loess Plateau to the myriad lights of the Guanzhong Plain, this power sky road, condensed with the sweat of builders and carrying the expectations of the people, will continue to flow with green energy and empower regional development. In the future, State Grid Shaanxi Electric Power will continue to weave a robust, intelligent, and green modern power grid, steadily promoting Shaanxi's leap from a major energy province to a strong green electricity province. With sustained and stable power guarantees, it will safeguard thousands of homes, empower industrial upgrades, contribute to ecological improvement, and inject solid and lasting Shaanxi electric power into ensuring national energy security, implementing the "dual carbon" goals, and driving the vigorous development of Shaanxi's economy.
