Three Gorges - Shanghai

The Three Gorges-Shanghai HVDC link reinforces the capacity of HVDC systems to interconnect asynchronous regions, and is a dedicated transmission highway connecting central China`s abundant power resources to heavy commercial and industrial load centers like Shanghai in the east.

Hitachi Energy built two HVDC converter stations for a second 3,000 MW ±500 kV HVDC power link transmitting electricity from the Three Gorges hydropower plant in central China to the coastal city of Shanghai. The transmission is owned by State Grid Corporation of China.

The 1,060-km long HVDC link was scheduled for commercial operation in 2007, but was completed and taken over by the customer more than six months earlier, in December 2006. Much of the system design was done jointly by Hitachi Energy and Chinese engineers, helping to settle equipment specifications at a very early stage.

This is the second 3,000 MW Three Gorges HVDC transmission link to Shanghai (Three Gorges-Changzhou was the first), and increases the amount of power delivered from central China to the eastern coast to 7,200 MW. One HVDC converter station is located at Yidu in Yichang County in Hubei Province, about 58 km from the Three Gorges power plant, and the other is at Huaxin in Qing Pu, on the western outskirts of Shanghai. The receiving station will feed power directly into the Shanghai 500 kV AC ring.

HVDC transmission systems promote the efficient use of energy resources by transmitting large power loads over long distances with low losses.