China starts UHV power line: The new 700 km UHV line will transmit 8M kW

The journal Science has an interesting article on China's remarkable shift to renewable energy:

"China’s turn to green energy dwarfs any other country’s, as a parade of astonishing numbers attests. In 2024 alone it installed new solar and wind generation equivalent to roughly 100 nuclear power plants, and the pace quickened early this year. Dozens of new, ultrahigh-voltage power lines are marching thousands of kilometers from western deserts where much of the solar energy is generated to the eastern cities where it is used. Hungrily awaiting the bounty of clean energy are millions of electric cars and a sprawling network of high-speed electric trains that can zip between cities 1000 kilometers apart in a morning."

The article also mentions that China produced more than 12 million electric cars in 2024, 70% of global production. "China now dominates global production of renewable energy technologies. It makes 80% of the world’s solar cells, 70% of its wind turbines, and 70% of its lithium batteries, at prices no competitor can match."

https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.aee8001

Such a weird numbering scheme... 8 million kilowatts is 8 gigawatts.

This is good news as they're still burning inexcusable amounts of coal to keep up with demand.

HV interconnects are a key component in reducing fossil fuel dependence and they to a very large degree offset the need for battery storage if used properly.

> Ultra-high voltage lines operate at voltages above 800 kV for direct current or 1,000 kV for alternating current,

Interesting, I thought above a certain distance DC is more viable. Or are they just describing the UHV term in general, not really that particular 700km line.

And this is why China is the future, and the US is Argentina.

China has completed a number of these projects and has several in construction. I am not able to directly confirm but this appears to be a DC line.

There's a decent high level summary on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity...

Now that the US has abdicated world leadership in so many areas, it's good to see China pushing the envelope.

8M kW? Isn't that 8GW?

That's more than 6 DeLorean Time Machines worth of power!

(~6.6 at 1.21 gigawatts per flux capacitor)