China State Grid, Spanish counterpart sign cooperation agreement

The State Grid, China’s leading power grid operators, announced on Friday it has inked a cooperation framework agreement with Spanish grid operator Red Electrica de Espana (REE).

Under the agreement, the two sides will work together closely to strengthen cooperation in developing grid-access technologies for renewable energies, as well as extra-high-voltage (EHV) power transmission.

Liu Zhenya, general manager of the State Grid, said that EHV development would be the top priority of the company in the coming five years.

It planned to construct 23,000 km EHV AC transmission lines and 20,000 km EHV DC transmission lines during the 2011-2015 period.

The State Grid now has access to more than 30 GW wind farm plant. These wind turbines generated 47.2 billion kWh electric power last year, a surge of 83.7 percent year on year, Liu added

The State Grid earlier announced that it plans to make a total investment of 322 billion yuan in 2011, including 292.5 billion yuan in the power grid, up 10 percent from 264.4 billion yuan in 2010.

www.ree.es