URUMQI: China has finished construction of a 4,197-km extra-high voltage power transmission loop around the Tarim Basin, home to the country’s largest desert, marking a major infrastructure milestone in southern Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
The final section of the 750-kilovolt (kV) loop, now the country’s largest of its kind, was connected on Sunday, capping a 15-year project involving nine substations and nearly 10,000 steel towers, according to a subsidiary of State Grid Xinjiang Electric Power Co., Ltd., which constructed the project. Dubbed a “power expressway loop,” the project is expected to become fully operational by November 2025, the company said.
Tarim Basin is home to the Taklimakan Desert, the world’s second-largest drifting desert. For centuries, relentless sandstorms have battered the oases of southern Xinjiang, isolating them not only in terms of distance but also from the prospects of development. Officials and experts say the project could put southern Xinjiang on a fast track to development and boost new energy supply nationwide. The transmission line passes through extreme terrain, from the shifting sands of the desert to the high altitudes of the Kunlun Mountains. Roads were built on the fly to transport materials across 50-meter-high dunes and in strong desert winds, while in the mountainous sections, cableways were used to haul nearly 3,000 tonnes of tower components, said Li Jun, a manager with the compan. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
