The biggest power outage in North America's history last week has sounded alarm bells over the security of Chinese grid systems.

Power distribution and management departments across the country have been urged to upgrade their systems to guarantee a safe operation, said officials with the National Grid Corporation over the weekend.

The build-up of regional grids and city-level grids can help ease the pressure of the whole national grid system which is undergoing preliminary unification, said the officials.

Beijing has established an emergency prevention system for its grid system following the US blackout, local government officials said.

The city's more than 60 percent of power supply comes from regional grids of Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Hebei and Northeast China. The city's Shisanling Reservoir hydropower plant can provide emergency power supplies to the city's key departments if any power failure takes place.

The electricity generated by the Three Gorges hydropower plant will be distributed to Guangdong, Jiangxi and Anhui provinces next year to ease local grid pressure, announced the State Development and Reform Commission yesterday.

The country's power consumption is forecast to maintain a high growth rate of more than 8 percent in the second half of this year.

(China Daily August 18, 2003)