The total investment in the past four years is expected to reach 830 billion yuan. This year, my country will complete a new round of rural power grid transformation and upgrading.

On June 28, Qi Chengyuan, deputy director of the National Energy Administration, stated at a regular briefing on the State Council's policies held by the State Council Information Office that this year my country will complete a new round of rural power grid transformation and upgrading tasks, one year ahead of the original plan.

Qi Chengyuan said that my country will increase its investment efforts and has issued a central investment plan of 36.1 billion yuan for rural power grid transformation and upgrading this year, of which 14 billion yuan will be invested from the central budget, all of which will be used in poverty-stricken areas. At the same time, China will urge power grid companies and local governments to increase their financial investment.

It is reported that in order to accelerate the pace of rural power grid transformation and upgrading in deeply impoverished areas, my country has launched a three-year action plan for rural power grid transformation and upgrading in the "three regions and three prefectures" (2018-2020), involving 8,769 administrative villages in 210 counties, benefiting 25.42 million people; strengthening rural power grid access to photovoltaic poverty alleviation projects. As of the end of 2018, 26 provinces in the country had rural power grid access to 19.3 million kilowatts of photovoltaic poverty alleviation projects, benefiting about 2.6 million poor households.

my country will increase central budget investment support for poverty-stricken areas. Since the 13th Five-Year Plan, central budget investment arrangements for rural power grid transformation and upgrading have given priority to poverty-stricken areas. Since 2018, all central funds have been used in poverty-stricken areas, of which the proportion of central funds used in the deep poverty-stricken areas of the "three regions and three prefectures" has increased from 50.9% in 2018 to 64.9% in 2019.

Qi Chengyuan said that the transformation and upgrading of rural power grids has a significant effect on expanding effective investment. Since the launch of a new round of rural power grid transformation and upgrading in 2016, my country has implemented it for three years. Including this year's plan, it is estimated that the total investment in the transformation and upgrading of rural power grids in four years will reach 830 billion yuan, of which 43.5 billion yuan will be invested in the central budget, driving the investment of about 787 billion yuan from corporate funds, bank funds and local fiscal funds.

The transformation of rural power grids has boosted rural electricity consumption. Qi Chengyuan said that in 2018, rural electricity consumption reached 2.46 trillion kWh, an increase of 30% over 2015, with an average annual growth rate of 9%, 3 percentage points higher than the growth rate of electricity consumption in the whole society during the same period. In addition, the improvement of rural electricity conditions has driven the replacement of farmers' household appliances. According to incomplete statistics, in rural areas where rural power grids were upgraded from 2016 to 2017, farmers added 7.2 million air conditioners, 5 million refrigerators, 4.5 million washing machines, 4.3 million televisions, and 6.1 million electric cookers, and the quality of life of rural residents has improved significantly.

Will the rural power grid transformation increase the rural electricity price level? Zhu Ming, director of the New Energy Department of the National Energy Administration, said that the new round of rural power grid transformation and upgrading will further consolidate the same price for urban and rural power grids while improving the power supply capacity and reliability of rural power grids. At present, the same price for urban and rural power grids has basically been achieved within the province, that is, the electricity price for urban and rural residents is the same.

Zhu Ming admitted that the electricity price is still high in some places where the power grid has not yet been covered or the rural power grid has not been upgraded. For example, in some remote areas of Tibet, before the rural power grid was upgraded, the local area used diesel generators for power supply, and the electricity price was more than 2 yuan/kWh. After the rural power grid was upgraded and covered, the electricity price dropped to 0.54 yuan/kWh, effectively reducing the burden on farmers.