Power from the mainland to Roof of the World

Xinhua has just announced that the Tibet-Sichuan grid is now functional.
The launching ceremony was chaired by Yu Zhengsheng, Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), who declared operational the power lines linking the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) to Sichuan Province.
The function was held  in Beijing.
Xinhua reported that the opening of the 1.08 billion U.S. dollar project linking Chamdo in the TAR and the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze in Sichuan Province, aims at "putting an end to the electricity shortages of the 500,000 residents of the Chamdo region and ease power strain in Tibet as a whole".
The news agency further explained: "The complex interconnection circuits stretch 1,521 kilometers across the plateau at an average altitude of 3,850 meters and its construction involved more than 20,000 staff over eight months, according to the State Grid Corporation of China."
Before the official launch, Yu inspected the power 'dispatching center' at the State Grid's headquarters where he met workers and engineers involved in a grid construction.
He was accompanied by Chen Quanglo, the TAR's Party Secretary.
The billion-yuan question is: will this investment still be used to send electricity from Tibet to Sichuan or vice-versa, once the dams on the Brahmaputra are complete.

According to China Environment Forum of the Wilson Centre in the US:

The West - East Electricity Transfer Project, initiated in the Tenth Five-Year Plan (2000-2005), was designed to bring investment and development to China’s lagging west while satisfying the growing electricity needs of the country’s eastern provinces. The project’s first phase has been and is continuing to expand the western provinces’ electricity-generating capacity, primarily through the construction of new coal bases and hydroelectric dams.The project’s second, ongoing component is the construction of three electricity-transmission corridors, which are essentially three vast networks of electrical transmission lines that connect newly built generation capacity in the North, Central and South to China’s electricity-hungry coast (see arrows on map). Each of the corridors is expected to exceed 40 gigawatts (GW) in capacity by 2020—a combined capacity equivalent to 60 Hoover Dams. The seven recipient provinces — Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Guangdong — together consume nearly 40 percent of China’s electricity.

A few pictures of the grid and the function.

 

Power for Tibet or from Tibet?

Considering that the Tibetan plateau has the greatest hydrological potential in the entire People's Republic (China's theoretical hydro-power resources have been estimated at 384 gigawatts), it is doubtful that this transmission line will be used to bring power from mainland to Tibet. It will probably the other way round. The purported dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) itself has a potential of 38 gigawatts and there are several other hydropower projects planned in Tibet. One day, these hydropowers plants will  not only feed Qinghai Province, but also the entire Northern China and why not the mainland.


Tibet to end history of power shortage by 2012
2010-08-02
China Tibet Information Center
The construction of Qinghai-Tibet AC/DC Interconnection Project, the highest and most difficult power transmission project in the world kicked off simultaneously in Lhasa and Golmud on July 29. It is expected to solve the problem of long-lasting power shortage in Tibet Autonomous Region when it is completed by the end of 2012.
"Many local farmers and herders came to watch the groundbreaking ceremony on that day to memorize this historic moment," Pasang, a local Tibetan said excitedly. "The Qinghai-Tibet Interconnection Project is a 'heaven road' of power supply."
With a total investment of 16,286 billion yuan, the whole project covers a distance of as long as 1,774,200 km. The AC line starts from Xining, capital city of northwest China's Qinghai Province in the east, passing through the Riyue Mountain and Wulan and ends at Golmud in the west, while the DC line starts from Golmud and ends at Lhasa, capital city of TAR.
Power industry in TAR started from scratch since the Peaceful Liberation in 1951, which has greatly benefitted local citizens.
However, as the people's livelihood has significantly been improved with a rising demand for power, power shortage has became an increasingly urgent problem due to the underdeveloped power infrastructure in TAR.
The construction of the power grid is regarded as one of the key projects in China's west development strategy at present and in the long run, Chinese President Hu Jintao said at the work meeting on the Development of China's Western region at the beginning of this July.
The Interconnection Project went through the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau known for scarce oxygen and frozen earth on the highest highland in the world. It  has created unavoidable challenges in both technology and construction work, according to Li Wenyi, director of Construction Department of China's State Grid.
Over 900,000 meters of the 1,038,000-meter AC line will be set up at an altitude of 4,000 meters, with the highest point standing on Tanggula Mountain at 5,300 meters above the sea level. Besides, over 565,000 meters of the line will be buried under the highest frozen earth.
Most notably, the protection of ecological environment will be given a top priority during the construction because the planned project will wind over various forms of terrain, including the inhabited area, unpopulated land, the waterhead of the three rivers, Hoh Xil Nature Reserve, etc.