According to the company's leadership, the core objective is for Shanxi Electric Power Construction to deeply integrate its corporate strategy for the 15th Five-Year Plan period with Shanxi's energy transition and industrial upgrade projects. The company will comprehensively build a "1+4" business layout, accelerating its evolution into a responsible, accountable, and respected international engineering company, thereby contributing the strength of a central state-owned enterprise to Shanxi's energy transformation and development.
As a primary force in the province's energy and power engineering construction sector, China Energy Engineering Group Shanxi Electric Power Construction Co., Ltd. (Shanxi Electric Power Construction) has navigated a remarkable ten-year journey from the "black sea of coal" towards a "green ocean." It has completed a stunning transformation from a business model primarily focused on traditional coal-fired power construction to a comprehensive layout across the entire new energy industry chain. Recently, an interview was conducted with Liu Shaojun, Party Secretary and Chairman of Shanxi Electric Power Construction, to explore the company's practical pathways and future plans for assisting local energy transformation and boosting regional high-quality development.
"For a long time, we have adhered to the principle of being rooted in Shanxi, building Shanxi, investing in Shanxi, and serving Shanxi. We have actively engaged in core areas such as clean coal power upgrades, new energy base development, Shanxi power transmission to other regions, treatment of coal mining subsidence areas, and ecological restoration," Liu Shaojun explained. The company is deeply entrenched in the region, focusing on its core business and successfully completing a series of landmark and pioneering major energy projects.
These include the world's first 660 MW ultra-supercritical circulating fluidized bed boiler power generation unit—the Zhongmei Pingshuo 2×660 MW low-calorific-value cogeneration new construction project, and Shanxi's first shared energy storage demonstration pilot—the Youyu County 400 MW/800 MWh shared energy storage PC general contracting project. The company also participated in investing in the country's first ten-million-ton level comprehensive coal gangue disposal and new component development integrated project—the Datong Ten-Million-Ton Coal Gangue Comprehensive Utilization Project.
While creating high-quality projects, the company actively fulfills its social responsibilities as a central state-owned enterprise. It effectively drives the iterative upgrade of the industrial chain, promotes employment and income growth, and supports rural revitalization, thereby strengthening the foundation for Shanxi to build a clean, low-carbon, safe, and efficient new energy system.
Discussing the new development layout for the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Liu Shaojun stated that this period represents a crucial stage for improving the quality and efficiency of energy transformation, as well as a golden opportunity for corporate transformation, upgrading, and expansion. The company will continue to deepen central-local collaboration, improve normalized cooperation mechanisms such as dedicated teams for major project advancement, co-construction and sharing of government-enterprise platforms, and coordinated market expansion across regions. This aims to align the company's strategic planning with local development layouts, creating synergy and concerted effort.
"We will anchor our efforts to the national energy security strategy, closely follow Shanxi's energy revolution deployment, and deeply integrate with local industrial upgrade and development needs. We will continue to consolidate our core business in energy and power, steadily cultivate and expand diversified auxiliary businesses in green construction, green transportation, ecological environmental protection, and hydropower, thereby perfecting a three-dimensional '1+4' business development pattern," Liu Shaojun said.
Focusing on technological innovation and future development, Liu Shaojun outlined the company's key strategic directions. Leveraging two provincial-level R&D platforms—the Shanxi Provincial Technology Center and the Shanxi Wind and Solar Power Engineering Technology Innovation Center—the company will closely follow industry trends and strive to cultivate and expand new quality productive forces.
It will continue to concentrate scientific research efforts on tackling key core technologies in areas like clean energy, smart energy, and new energy storage, deepen industry-academia-research-application collaborative innovation, and promote the deep integration of digital and intelligent technologies with engineering construction and energy operation and maintenance. The company will advance the construction of a batch of key provincial projects, such as the Xuangang Phase II 2×660 MW project, to high standards.
This will continuously optimize the industrial structure, enhance development quality and efficiency, and steadfastly follow a path of connotative, intensive, and sustainable development, consistently injecting strong momentum into Shanxi's energy transformation, industrial quality improvement, and green development.
Case Study: Turning Mountain Breezes into Green Power
In the summer, the landscape is vibrant with new growth, and the mountains are lush with greenery. In the eastern mountainous area of Pingding County, Yangquan City, dozens of white wind turbines are scattered across the verdant ridges. Their massive blades gracefully turn in the wind, transforming the invisible mountain breeze into clean electricity, which flows through silver transmission lines into the regional grid, illuminating countless homes.
As Shanxi's first new energy power station to achieve combined wind-storage primary frequency regulation control technology, the Pingding Phase II 100 MW Wind Power Expansion Project is equipped with 25 wind turbine units, each with a capacity of 4.0 MW, paired with a 10 MW/20 MWh energy storage system. This system can store energy when wind power generation is abundant and discharge power to support the grid during output fluctuations or when frequency regulation is needed, significantly enhancing new energy consumption levels and the safe, stable operation of the power grid.
The project was invested in by China Energy Engineering Investment Co., Ltd. and constructed by Shanxi Electric Power Construction under an EPC general contracting model. The wind farm covers an area of nearly 400 square kilometers, spanning 3 townships and 36 villages. During the initial construction phase, transporting the massive 70-meter-long turbine blades to the steep mountain peaks presented a significant challenge.
"In the project's early stages, we organized a professional team to survey the transportation route section by section, investigating and identifying obstacles along the way to ensure the route remained unobstructed," explained Jin Yong, a technical staff member who worked on the Pingding Phase II project. Overcoming numerous obstacles, the construction team safely transported each "giant" to the mountaintop.
Construction began in March 2022, with the first batch of turbines connected to the grid in September of the same year, achieving full-capacity operation by the end of 2022. The project set multiple industry benchmark records at the time for optimal mountain wind farm design, shortest construction period, and fastest turbine installation.
Beneath the collector lines, temporary construction roads and work traces from the past are now covered by lush vegetation, blending seamlessly with the surrounding forest. "We have always insisted on advancing ecological protection and engineering construction simultaneously. We proactively planted 5,800 fir and cypress trees and sowed grass seeds over 5 mu of land across various sections of the collector line to restore vegetation, ensuring we leave no 'ecological scars,'" said Wang Zhiqiang, former project manager for the Pingding Phase II expansion.
Since its operation began, the project has cumulatively delivered over 1.4 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity. The steadily turning "windmills" continue to release green energy, empowering industrial upgrades and improving people's livelihoods. Through central-local collaboration, high-quality ecological resources are efficiently transformed into sustainable development advantages, turning clear waters and green mountains into "golden mountains and silver mountains" that enrich the people and invigorate industries.