Village in Zhejiang gets power upgrade

In the mountainous areas of Chun'an county, Zhejiang province, the village of Hujiaping boasts a unique natural climate and beautiful scenery, with an average elevation of 800 meters.

However, high mountains, narrow roadways and poor transportation infrastructure years ago rendered the region backward in terms of economic development, and its per capita income at the lowest level in Chun'an under the city of Hangzhou.

Supported by national policies, the local government, enterprises and villagers worked together to build a "cooperative" rural community in recent years, investing in such support facilities as fitness paths, canyon trails, mountain bike routes and starry sky camps.

Now rising to the level of a hot "internet-famous check-in place" for "mountain wilderness tours" and "summer retreats" this summer, the village is witnessing its new project — Yunding Taoyuan (Fairyland on Cloud Top) with an investment of 500 million yuan ($70.4 million) — gradually taking shape.

The well-designed hiking trails, sea of cloud vistas and fields of flowers, alongside "Happy Farms", have attracted many tourists to the area, providing villagers with handsome incomes, said Ren Maopan from State Grid Chun'an County Power Supply Co.

Booming ecotourism in Hujiaping has made its auxiliary farmhouse business sector increasingly busy, and its industrial development has also led to a sharp increase in power demand.

"The village's public transformer has been expanded from an initial 240 kilovolt amperes to 1,600 kVA now, and an additional 400 kVA public transformer will be added in the future considering industrial needs," said Jiang Long, head of the electricity provider's Weiping station.

Amid joint moves to aid Hujiaping's high-quality development, State Grid Chun'an County Power Supply Co has tailored a power grid construction and transformation plan for the village, building 26 kilometers of new 35-kilovolt lines and 7.5 km of newly constructed or renovated 10-kV lines.

"The reliability of power supplies to the village has been increased to 99.99 percent, effectively solving the low voltage constraints on its rural development," said Ren.

Ren added that the local power supplier has also optimized services by simplifying the application process, shortening the time for power connection and reducing costs, in addition to enriching channels for customers to apply for electricity provisions.

In the scorching August heat, vegetable base manager Pan Zhengwang said his base in the village is a pleasant sight to behold, with neatly arranged standardized steel frame greenhouses, vibrant loofahs and green beans hanging from stalks, while irrigation equipment operate in an orderly manner.

"Our base increased its electricity consumption by 60 kilowatts. I thought it would cost a lot of money and time, but it didn't," Pan said.

Back in 2023, Pan applied for electricity use at a mobile power station, and employees from State Grid Chun'an County Power Supply Co installed a power meter for him, which supplied electricity at low voltage, with the process from application to power connection completed in just two days.

With a history of over 5,000 years and now acting as a semi-provincial level city, Hangzhou administers 10 districts, one county-level city and two counties, including Chun'an.