Heihe City of northeast China's
Heilongjiang
Province has started importing electricity from the Far East
area of Russia recently, to meet the increasing demand for power in
the local raw materials industries.
This was the first time that China has imported electricity from
Russia.
The city would import 15.4 billion kilowatt hours of electricity
from Amurskaya of Russia in the next 10 years, to develop local
industrial silicon, silicon carbide, graphite electrode,
electrolytic copper and other high energy-consuming raw materials
industries, said Su Zhenping, head of the management committee of
the Heihe City Economic Cooperation Zone.
A total of 400 million kilowatt hours of electricity will be
imported this year, and the import is expected to reach 500 million
kilowatt hours in 2005, one billion and 1.5 billion kilowatt hours
in 2006 and 2007 respectively. By 2008, the annual import will
reach 2 billion kilowatt hours, according to a bilateral agreement
signed in August last year. The agreement expires in 2013.
Su said the Russian side was active in electricity export and
promised to initially charge 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour. With the
expansion of electricity import, the charge is expected to drop
gradually.
Materials provided by the Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of
Sciences show that currently Russia generates over 1 trillion
kilowatt hours of electricity annually and most of its power
stations are located in Siberia and the Far East areas, where
output of electricity far exceeds demands.
With fast economic growth, especially that of the
energy-consuming industries, in recent years, China's power
consumption has increased rapidly, causing serious electricity
shortages in the country. As a result, 21 provinces enforced
blackouts in 2003 to prevent the grid from crashing.
Song Kui, a research fellow with the Heilongjiang Provincial
Academy of Sciences, said that importing electricity from
neighboring countries was expected to be an effective way to solve
the power crisis in China and was conducive to the development of
both countries.
(Xinhua News Agency May 6, 2004)