Feb. 18, 2008 (China Knowledge) - State Grid, China's top power supplier, plans to invest RMB 253.2 billion to strengthen the power grid construction, in order to improve the disaster resilience of the power grid, according to Liu Zhenya, general manager of State Grid.

The south of China has experienced serious power shortage since the middle of January due to the damage of the power grid caused by severe snowfall. For instance, in Jiangxi Province, most of the high-voltage power grids were paralyzed.

State Grid will put forward solutions for raising the design standards for power grid construction in the near future. Meanwhile, it will actively cooperate with the related sectors on modification of these standards, in a bid to prevent the new power grid from being damaged by disasters within 50 or 100 years.

In line, the construction of 132,000 kilometers of 110 KV high voltage transmission line will be launched this year.

State Grid said earlier this month that it would use RMB 30 billion to restore the power supply in the snow-hit areas by the end of March. At present, the firm paid more attention to the design standard rather than the mere power restoration.