History
State Grid is one of the "core" central state-owned enterprises (SOE) overseen by SASAC. The company is a pioneer in developing clean energy technology.
China began an initiative to reform the country's power sector in a three-stage process in 1986.[5] In the third and final stage in March 2002 the State Council of the People's Republic of China put into effect a plan to restructure the country's electric power system in order to create competition and separate generation and transmission functions.[6] The State Grid Corporation of China was founded on December 29, 2002, when the restructuring divided the former State Power Corporation of China into two grid companies, five generation groups and four accessorial business companies.[7][8] The two grid companies created were the State Grid Corporation of China and a smaller China Southern Power Grid Company.[9] SGCC accounts for 80% of the Chinese grid, with China Southern Power Grid accounting for the other 20%.[10] At its creation, SGCC company had a generation capacity of 6.47 gigawatts.[6]
In 2003 and progressively so through the early 2000s, electrical shortages caused the government to institute rolling blackouts. The State Grid Corporation estimated there were 1 trillion yuan in losses from 2002 to 2005.[6] The State Grid Corporation of China ran the first 1,000-kilovolt alternating current power line between Northern Shanxi and center Hubei in January 2009. In 2012 it began operation of an 800-kilovolt direct current line that sends hydropower from western Sichuan to Shanghai. It also has an alternating current loop line in the Yangtze River delta, and three longitudinal alternating current lines that bring power to Southern China from the Northern region.[11]
Beginning in 2011, State Grid began transferring operation assets from regional power grid companies to the provincial level network companies.[8]
The State Grid Corporation was involved in a multi-phase smart-grid project for China's electrical grid planned for 2011–2015.[12] China's smart grid efforts are different from those in the United States in that its plans heavily use ultra high voltage (UHV) lines. Several UHV construction projects began in 2012 to bring UHV power lines across Huainan, Wannan, and Shanghai and another from Xilingol League to Nanjing. By 2015, the company planned to have three more horizontal UHV lines through West Inner Mongolia to Weifang, from Central Shanxi–Xuzhou to Yaan–southern Anhui and 11 other lines by 2015.[11]
In 2013, State Grid established a Board of Directors at its holding company level and Liu Zhenya became its Chairman.[8] He continued to serve as Party Secretary.[8] Liu adopted the strategy of "one special, four large": the development of UHV power grids (the "one special") and hydropower, coal power, nuclear power, and renewable energy (the "four large").[8] Liu increased State Grid's investment in UHV research and development, creating a UHV Power Grid Engineering Group and a UHV Grid Engineering Working Group.[8]
On October 29, 2014, The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection declared that the general manager of State Grid Shanghai Municipal Electric Power, Feng Jun, was detained in an anti-graft operation overseen by the commission.[13] In 2017, his assets (worth 53 million yuan) were seized, and he was sentenced to life in prison.[14]
In 2015, SGCC proposed the Global Energy Interconnection, a long-term proposal to develop globally integrated smart grids and ultra high voltage transmission networks to connect over 80 countries.[15] The idea is supported by General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping and his administration in attempting to develop support in various internal forums, including UN bodies.[15]
After Liu Zhenya's retirement from State Grid, in 2016 Shu Yinbiao became the enterprise's Chairman and Party Secretary.[8] Shu continued Liu's strategy of "one special, four large" and instituted a new strategy of "re-electrification" which sought to replace coal and petroleum power with electricity generated from renewable energy sources.[8]
As of 2024, SGCC is the world's largest energy utility company.[15] SGCC is the third biggest company in the world (as measured by revenues) in the 2023 Fortune Global 500.[8] It operates almost all of China's energy transmission network.[15]
