Through the mobilization of over 300,000 power company employees, service for 90 percent of the 36,740 power lines damaged by heavy January and February snows has been restored.

Despite these efforts, many localities have been left with having to rely on temporary lines for transmitting electricity and it may be some time before they are restored to their original conditions.

One of the difficulties comes from the geographic conditions where these power systems are located. Many of the collapsed power lines, towers and poles are high in the mountains or along steep ridges hard to reach even with modern equipment. Another is the shortage of funds. Power grids must be reinforced and line standards increased to prevent future damage from heavy snows. These upgrades take tremendous amounts of funding.

Two companies manage China's power grids: State Grid Corp. of China (SGCC) and China Southern Power Grid Co. Ltd. (CSG). According to Liu Zhenya, General Manager of SGCC, his company alone needs 39 billion yuan ($5.49 billion) to restore the damaged power grids.

Heavy losses

Heavy snows swept through much of south and central China starting in mid-January and lasting into early February. Snow and ice first created traffic nightmares that bogged the transport of coal supplies, leaving power plants in a lurch. Seventeen provinces and municipalities suffered power outages. The snow started melting then turned to ice when the weather became cold again, covering transmission lines with their icy weight. The thickest ice reached 50 mm when most of the power lines were only designed to hold 10-15 mm of ice at best. The result was the collapse of many power lines and transmission towers.

According to the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC), besides damaging transmission lines, the heavy snow and ice knocked 1,933 transformer substations out of commission. Power supplies in 170 counties in south China were affected and 80 counties had their power completely cut. SGCC suffered 10.45 billion yuan ($1.47 billion) in losses and CSG lost 20 billion yuan ($2.82 billion).

Power cuts severely damaged transport and Chenzhou in Hunan Province felt the biggest blow. The major artery that connects north and south China-the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway-passes through Chenzhou, and power outages created major traffic delays for trains on this route. Occurring just before the Spring Festival, when many Chinese migrant workers started to return home for the holidays, delays on this route caused serious problems. In early February, 40 trains carrying 40,000 passengers were stuck along the route. In Guangzhou of Guangdong Province, some 800,000 passengers were camped out at railway stations for days waiting for their trains to come in.

Power outages also affected telecommunications. Around 3.14 million fixed-line telephone subscribers were without services in south China due to the storms, leading to direct economic losses of around 56.9 million yuan ($8.01 million).

"This is the first time in my memory that south China has been so seriously damaged by heavy snow," said Shi Yubo, Vice Chairman of the SERC.

Improving the grids

The question now for grid companies is how to make power grids stronger after restoration than they were before in order to face future disasters. Information from SGCC shows that the company will readjust design and construction standards in south China in order to enhance the ability of power grids in the region to withstand ice and snow.

According to its plan, SGCC has decided to increase design standards. Power grids of 35-330 kilovolts (kv) will be designed to withstand disasters once every 30 years instead of once every 15 years, or ice coverage of 15 mm. Power grids of 500 kv will be designed to withstand disasters once every 50 years instead of once every 30 years and those of 750 kv are to weather disasters once every half century, or ice coverage of 30 mm. The ultra high-voltage networks under construction will be capable of withstanding disasters once every century, or ice coverage of 50 mm. Previously transmission lines in south China could only take a maximum ice coverage of 15 mm though in some mountainous areas, transmission lines had been designed to carry ice up to 20-33 mm thick.

According to their new designing rules, SGCC will also increase the standards of some important networks. Networks of 110-330 kv will be designed to withstand disasters once every 50 years. Networks of 500-750 kv, as well as ultra high-voltage transmission lines and direct-current transmission lines, will be able to withstand disasters occurring on average once every century.

SGCC will first restore transmission lines to their previous standards to ensure electricity supplies for civil use and then start the upgrades according to the new standards. Figures from SGCC show that every year, the company invests about 200 billion yuan ($28.17 billion) in power grid construction. It may take three or five years to complete the overall upgrade of the networks.

These upgrades will not only improve the capability of the power grids to weather future storms, but also greatly increases the grid construction costs. Yang Jianping, Chief Engineer at SGCC Beijing Power Construction Research Institute, said project costs for increasing the ability of power lines to hold more ice will jump 2.6 fold.

Some experts estimate that with the new standards, SGCC will need at least 500 billion yuan ($70.42 billion) to complete the transformation of the power grids under its auspices.

Officials from SGCC have said that the company will pay for the increased costs itself.

CSG has consented to the plans to increase grid standards initiated by SGCC. Since the previous national standards failed during the recent storms, the new standards issued by SGCC are likely to become the industry-wide standards.

Yuan Maozhen, Chairman of CSG, told the media that the company is preparing an initial public offering and planning to collect over 10 billion yuan ($1.41 billion) through government and banks loans for the reconstruction of the power networks damaged by the snowstorms. Although Yuan didn't reveal whether the company would increase its standards, judging from the CSG's present reconstruction work, it has been following SGCC's lead.

Experts weigh in

Snowstorms of the magnitude that hit south China in recent months only occur once every 50 years. Many have wondered if something could be done to prevent such huge losses in the future, or keep them at the bare minimum.

This is not second-guessing or 20/20 vision in hindsight. The actual losses from the storms could have been much less. After power outages in the United States, Canada and Russia a few years ago, Zhao Xizheng, former general manager of SGCC, published an article in People's Daily, China's biggest newspaper, warning about the security of the country's power system.

Zhao pointed out at that time that China's power grid structure was fragile and under threat. He pointed out several major problems existing in China's power grids: Power grid construction had long lagged behind; the safe operation of power grids was easily influenced by external forces; the quality of some equipment was not high enough, affecting safety, reliability, efficiency and flexible operation of power grids.

All these problems came to light during the recent snowstorms, although they could have been easily solved in the years leading up to them.

Chong Yanmin, deputy to the 11th National People's Congress and General Manager of TBEA Hengyang Transformer Co. Ltd., said that in the reconstruction after the snowstorms, investment in power grid construction should be increased and the long existing development ideas that value electricity generation more than power grids should be completely overhauled.

According to Chong, among the aggregate investment in electricity generation and power grids between 2003 and 2007, the investment proportion in power grids and electricity generation in China was 33:67. In developed countries, the proportion was flipped, about 60:40. In China, the investment in construction of power grids obviously lags behind that in electricity generation.

All previous development surges in China were led by the construction of electricity generation while power grid construction has been left behind. In recent years, the country has increased its electricity generation capability by 70 million kilowatts every year to ease power shortfalls. "The disaster this time proves that without firm and good quality power grids, any power plant can become purely ornamental," Chong said.

Lu Qizhou, member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, once served as director of the department of electricity transmission operations of the State Power Corp. (the present SGCC), and is an experienced expert in power. In Lu's opinion, in upgrading the power grids, increasing the standards can of course enhance their ability to withstand disasters. But in his words, this is far from enough. Lu said stress should be put upon the balance between construction of inter-regional power transmission plants and regional power transmission plants.

According to Lu, in the previous construction of power plants, only inter-regional power-transmission plant construction was emphasized and regional power transmission plant construction was ignored. Inter-regional power transmission plants have high productivity and can save energy, however, once the power grids break down, no electricity can be sent out. Most of the present regional power transmission plants are old. With small installed capacity and low efficiency, they will be closed in the drive for energy conservation and emission reduction. Their advantage, however, is that they can ensure independent transmission of power.

During this snowstorm, two large cities didn't suffer from power outages: Guiyang in Guizhou Province and Nanchang in Jiangxi Province. Guiyang depended on Guiyang Power Plant and Nanchang depended on Nanchang Power Plant. These two power plants had been slated to close, but surprisingly played an important role at an important time.