# Province-level wiring: who sends, who receives

The China buildout only pays off if the power actually crosses provincial borders. The system runs on two nested totals — **cross-provincial (跨省)** deliveries and the tighter **cross-regional (跨区)** ladder — both still growing ~7–9% a year. Below them, the economics are fixed by which provinces are structural **senders** (resource-rich, undersized load) and which are structural **receivers** (load-heavy coasts).

## The two national ladders (2024, China Electricity Council)

- **Cross-regional deliveries: 924.2 TWh (+8.8%)** — power moved between the country's six regional grids.
- **Cross-provincial deliveries: 1,995.1 TWh (+7.0%)** — the fuller provincial ladder (includes intra-region provincial flows, so it's the larger number).

Don't conflate: the headline West-to-East Power Transmission (西电东送) corridors below are the dynamic sub-component, not these totals.

## The senders — abundant-power west & north

- **Inner Mongolia** — **No. 1 provincial exporter nationwide**: State Grid East Inner Mongolia exported **227.7 TWh in 2025**, #1 among provincial grids for the third straight year. Its stake locks in the 15th Five-Year Plan UHV build: the Western Inner Mongolia-Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei ±800kV line (Kubuqi 12 GW → North China, 2027 target) is the first export corridor for the desert mega-bases (沙戈荒), and Inner Mongolia is building to a "four AC, four DC" (四交四直) pattern exporting **over 50 GW**. New-energy installed capacity hit 174.1 GW by Q1 2026 (3.4× the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan, 54% of provincial capacity).
- **Yunnan** — southern-corridor hydro power: West-to-East Power Transmission **cumulative past 2,000 TWh** (2025-10). 10 DC circuits for long-haul delivery; 2025 hydro output up about 6%, new energy up 14%.
- **Sichuan** — central hydro sender: the Sichuan-Chongqing 1000kV AC link lifted the southwest main grid to 1000kV (each circuit ~35 TWh/yr).
- **Shanxi / Shaanxi** — northern coal-plus-new-energy senders, serving Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei & East China.
- *Nationwide, new energy is ~18% of cross-provincial channel deliveries.*

## The receivers — load-center east & south

- **Guangdong** — southern-corridor first receiver, the **nation's first province with a 160 GW peak load**. China Southern Power Grid's West-to-East transmission delivered a **record 261.5 TWh in 2025** (+31 TWh vs 2020); 14th Five-Year Plan cumulative 1,140 TWh.
- **Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei / East China** — terminal of the north and central corridors. On the receive side, Zhejiang's 1000kV AC ring (construction started 2026-04) will double south-to-north transfer capacity from 10 → 20 GW to hold a 180 GW peak by the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan (+40% vs 2025).

## The three corridors at a glance

- **Southern corridor**: Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau → Guangxi → Guangdong (+Hainan), led by China Southern Power Grid. 2025 record 261.5 TWh; 30-yr cumulative past 3,000 TWh.
- **Northern corridor**: Inner Mongolia / Shanxi / Shaanxi → Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei → East China, led by State Grid. Eastern Inner Mongolia 227.7 TWh (No. 1 provincial grid); Western Inner Mongolia-Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei 12 GW (Kubuqi, 2027); Inner Mongolia "four AC, four DC" >50 GW.
- **Central corridor**: Sichuan → Central China / East China, led by State Grid. Sichuan-Chongqing 1000kV AC in operation; the central-corridor hydro mainstay.

## The northern stake, in numbers

| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Planned Inner Mongolia export capacity | **50 GW** ("four AC, four DC", post-2027) |
| Inner Mongolia new-energy installed (Q1 2026) | **174.1 GW** (3.4× the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan) |
| …as % of provincial capacity | **54%** |

## Method & honesty

Figures split across the China Electricity Council (CEC) "China Electric Power Industry Annual Development Report 2025" (released 2025-07), National Energy Administration (NEA) / Guangming Daily (2026-01-09), SASAC (State Grid, 2026-06-01), China News Service (2026-01-30), and People's Daily China Energy News (2025-10). Not every province publishes a single 2025 export kWh — Yunnan, Sichuan, Shanxi and Shaanxi are shown as **direction + role** rather than an exact annual number (labeled exact:false in the dataset). Cross-regional and cross-provincial are different totals with different scopes; and the 15th Five-Year Plan capacity figures are published pipeline ("four AC, four DC", Western Inner Mongolia-Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei 2027), not yet commissioned capacity.