BEIJING, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Since upgrading of local grids, farmers in the southern pastoral areas of Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China have embraced a better life where easier access to electricity largely enabled rural development.
Compared to the past, "we can now use at will grinders to produce livestock forage and electric heaters in winter and we are living a better and better life," a local villager told Zhang Wei, a transformer district manager with Xindi Power Supply Station.
In recent years, farmers who live in the mountainous regions in the south of Changji, found it hard to balance the burgeoning local animal farming and tourism development with outdated grid structure and insufficient power supply there.
In Dadonggou, a village located in Jimsar County of Changji in particular, past frequent outages made renovation and upgrading of local grids much more imperative than nearby villages.
On hearing their troubles, Changji Power Supply Company, a local grid operator under State Grid Xinjiang Electric Power Co., Ltd., responded with a fast application of a grid upgrading program to solve the power shortage issues for farmers in the southern mountainous areas of Changji.
The program, which involves building 2.6 kilometers of new 10kV transmission lines and 28.4 kilometers of 0.4kV power lines, replacing a transformer and increasing the transformer load capacity to 400kVA, greatly satisfied local livestock farmers' need for safe and efficient power supplies.
To ensure all livestock farmers gain access to convenient power supply services, two on-site inspections were conducted by Changji Power Supply Company and staffs of the local government of Xindi Town of Jimsar County in early July.
As a result, the overall plan of the grid upgrading program took into consideration both the natural landscape protection in southern Changji and power demand of local livestock farmers, paying a way for tourism development in Dadonggou Village.
When staffs of Changji Power Supply Company put in place a new pole-mounted transformer and removed 3.6 kilometers of old transmission lines on September 11, local farmers enjoyed hence safe and stable power supplies.
Xu Liang, deputy township head of Xindi Town, said that the grid upgrading has significantly improved the power supply for local livestock farmers as currently, villagers in Dadonggou Village are living in warm houses and grinder-facilitated feed production helps boost local animal husbandry industry.
In the future, close attention will be paid by Changji Power Supply Company to meet the power need of local characteristic industries and overall rural grid upgrading in Changji to inject more impetus to rural development there.
(Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)
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