China Energy Engineering, one of the nation’s biggest power plant designers and builders, is expanding into the newly opened up business of power distribution previously operated by state monopolies, according to its chief.
The Beijing-based firm, the flagship unit of state-owned Energy China Group which listed in Hong Kong a year ago, wants to take advantage of new growth opportunities from the gradual liberalisation of the nation’s power industry. Power distribution monopolies held by the State Grid Corporation and China Southern Power Grid ended in 2015, opening up last mile distribution to competition.
“We have an industry chain covering a complete life-cycle suite of services spanning planning, consulting, design, construction, equipment, commissioning, operation, maintenance and overhaul,” chairman Wang Jianping told the South China Morning Post. “We have over 20 planning and engineering subsidiaries serving both power plant developers and grid operators.”
“The rapid growth of China’s electricity industry in the past decade has improved China’s construction technologies and qualities, giving us a competitive edge worldwide.”
Still, the company faces keen competition in a nascent but crowded market.
Besides the incumbent last mile distribution units of the former monopolies, over 300 power distribution firms have been set up in mainland China since deregulation started, of which around a fifth were power producers, according to a report last April by the Economic Information Daily, an affiliate of Xinhua.