China Starts $3.9 Billion Power Transmission and Storage Project

(Bloomberg) — China’s largest utility has started construction on a 28 billion yuan ($3.9 billion) project to transmit electricity across three provinces and store it in mountain reservoirs as the country integrates growing amounts of intermittent renewable energy.

The project includes a 1,069-kilometer (664-mile) ultra-high-voltage power line from northern Shaanxi province to the outskirts of Hefei, a city of almost 10 million in East China’s Anhui province, state-run Beijing Youth Daily reported. Near its terminus it will be connected to a 1.2 gigawatt pumped hydro station that uses reservoirs at different heights on mountains to store energy through gravity and water.