# Cross-provincial flows: the buildout only pays off if power crosses provinces

China's electricity geography is inverted: supply (wind, solar, hydro) sits far west and north, demand is coastal. **West-to-East Power Transmission** (西电东送) is the physical circuit that connects them. This page tracks the scale of that circuit, how much clean power rides it, and where it is heading.

## Where it stands (end of the 14th Five-Year Plan, 2021-25)

- **Corridor capacity** rose from ~270 GW at the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2020) to **~340 GW** by the end of the 14th (2025) — a ~26% expansion in one five-year plan.
- In **2024**, cross-region UHV-DC moved **~420 TWh** of clean power — roughly **60% of all long-haul UHV-DC outflow** and **+70% vs the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2020)**.
- **46 UHV AC/DC projects** were operating at end-2025 (**22 AC + 24 DC**), +9.5% y/y.
- The southern network (China Southern Power Grid) has delivered a lifetime cumulative **~3,300 TWh** (~3.3 trillion kWh) of west-to-east power.

## The 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) is a step-change, not a plateau

- **State Grid** commits **¥4 trillion** of five-year capex, **+40% vs the 14th Five-Year Plan** (~¥800 billion/yr); national grid investment as a whole crosses **¥5 trillion+, +80%**.
- **Cross-region transfer capacity** is targeted to rise **more than 30%** vs the end-2025 level (NEA).
- **15 new UHV-DC lines** — taking West-to-East Power Transmission capacity **past 420 GW** — plus 6+ regional interconnect projects (~40 GW mutual-aid).
- The capex is partly demand-pull: the State Grid service area alone plans **~200 GW/yr of new wind + solar**, which must be evacuated.

## New lines, project by project

**14th Five-Year Plan closeout (2025):**
- **Longdong-Shandong** ±800 kV (eastern Gansu to Shandong) — China's first export line from an integrated wind-solar-thermal-storage energy base; first UHV-DC to enter service at full capacity in a single step; 915 km; ¥20.2 billion; 14.5 GW of paired generation (incl. 10.5 GW wind and solar + 1.05 GW storage); ships ~36 TWh/yr to Shandong.
- **Ningxia-Hunan**, **Hami-Chongqing**, **Upper Jinsha-Hubei** (±800 kV each) — Upper Jinsha-Hubei is the first line deep into the Sichuan-Tibet plateau (first high-altitude, split-site cascaded UHV-DC, ~1,900 km), and Hubei's second corridor for importing outside power.
- Plus phase II of the Qinghai-Tibet grid interconnection.

**15th Five-Year Plan openers (2026):**
- **Northern Shaanxi-Anhui** ±800 kV — the 15th Plan's first commissioned UHV-DC (live 2026-06-30), 1,055 km, ¥20.5 billion.
- **Gansu-Zhejiang** ±800 kV — the **world's first flexible (voltage-source converter) UHV-DC**, 2,370 km, flexible valves at both ends, targeting ~2026-27; will send >36 TWh/yr at >50% green share.

## The deserts have named highways

Each Gobi / desert anchor base has a mapped corridor to a load center:
Kubuqi → Shanghai · Ulan Buh → Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei · Badain Jaran → Sichuan · Tengger → Jiangxi · Qinghai → Guangxi/Jiangsu · Southern Xinjiang → Sichuan · Songliao (Northeast) → North China · Inner Mongolia → Jiangsu/East China · Gansu → Shanghai/Guangxi · Medog (Tibet) hydropower export.

This ties directly to the **/gobi** page: the deserts aren't just built — every one has a wire.

## Method & honesty

Figures span the NEA, the China Electricity Council (CEC) "China Electric Power Industry Annual Development Report 2026" (2026-07), SASAC, People's Daily/Xinhua and industry roundups (2023–2026 releases). Cumulative and capacity numbers are exact where a source stated them; annual flows and 15th Five-Year Plan targets are pipeline/directional and flagged as such. The 46-project UHV count (Zhiyan Consulting citing 2025 industry stats) uses different granularity from the line-level table on **/transmission** — treat the two as complementary, not conflicting.

Data note: in `/data/cross_provincial_flows.json`, the `*_twh` energy fields under `west_east_cumulative_twh` and `uhvdc_clean_energy_2024_twh` hold units of 100 million kWh (divide by 10 for TWh), and the `plan_15_5` `*_bn_rmb` capex fields hold units of 100 million yuan (divide by 10 for billion yuan). Project `investment_bn_rmb` values are billion yuan.