China Grid Giant Plans Record Spending to Ease Power Bottlenecks

(Bloomberg) -- China’s main grid operator will raise spending to a record to ease transmission bottlenecks, underscoring Beijing’s push to boost renewable-energy usage and potentially benefiting metals including copper.

State Grid Corp. of China, which covers more than 80% of the country, will increase spending 13% to 600 billion yuan ($83 billion) this year, the Economic Information Daily reported, citing a budget plan. That follows an announcement from smaller peer, China Southern Power Grid Co., that it will lift capital spending for network upgrading by more than half by 2027.

China — which is still heavily reliant on coal-fired power generation — is in the throes of an unprecedented shift toward renewables to deliver on climate pledges. Still, the move has been hobbled by a lack of grid capacity to get solar and wind power from where it’s produced to users. Expanding that infrastructure typically requires using copper and aluminum.

State Grid — the world’s single-biggest buyer of copper — said it would beef up the network of ultra-high-voltage lines that carry power from China’s vast renewables bases, which are mostly located in remote desert regions, far from the main centers of consumer and industrial demand. In addition, connections between counties along trunk lines would also be targeted, it said.

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