Testing of the Qilian converter station in
the Jiuquan – Shaoshan ±800kV UHVDC transmission line started earlier this
week, on the 10th of March. Black start capability, protection
settings and protection co-ordination as well as current control is among the
comprehensive set of more than 640 tests that are necessary before the final
commissioning of the UHVDC station.
This converter station is part of the Jiuquan
– Shaoshan ±800kV UHVDC transmission line a project designed and constructed
with investments from the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) connecting the
northwestern part of China and Gansu Province to the middle of the country in
Hunan Province. The ±800kV UHVDC transmission line, with a total length of 2383
km, crosses four provinces, from Gansu through Shaanxi and Chongqing, to
Shaoshan in Hunan. The capacity of the two converter stations is 16 GW and the transmission
line will be delivering 20.000 GWh of energy at its initial stages and 40.000
GWh of energy annually, when fully utilized
The project, which aims to facilitate
integration of large-scale renewable wind and solar resources from the
northwest of China to the load centers in the center of the country, was authorized
in 2015 by the Chinese department of national development. Its construction
took 18 months with the transmission line completed in late December 2016.
The complete project, that is expected to
come into service in June of 2017, costed a total of 26.2 billion RMB (approximately
5 billion Australian dollars).
