State Grid Corporation operates the world's largest and most technologically advanced long-distance power transmission network. The record-setting ±1,100kV DC line from Changji to Guquan transmits 12 GW — equivalent to 12 nuclear reactors — over 3,293 km from wind farms in Xinjiang to factories in Anhui. The BBC called it 'a bullet train for power.'
UHV is the invisible infrastructure that makes China's renewable energy work. Solar panels in the Gobi Desert and wind farms in Inner Mongolia are thousands of kilometers from the industrial cities that need the electricity. Without UHV, that energy is stranded. China's 45 UHV lines solve this; no other country has the technology at scale.
The NYT reported in October 2025 that Beijing's central planners underestimated the speed of solar and wind adoption, creating a transmission bottleneck that UHV expansion is racing to close. The grid is the binding constraint on how fast China can deploy renewables.