The installation capacity of electric generators reached 100 million kilowatts in 1987, and 200 million in 1995. Assembling units with a capacity over 300,000 kilowatts play a leading role in power generating, and units with a single-machine capacity of 660,000 or even 800,000 kilowatts have been put into operation. Condensing power generating assembling units with less than 50,000 kilowatt capacity will gradually cease operation.
China now ranks third in the world in hydroelectric power.
It seeks to construct interconnected electric networks across the northern, middle and southern part of China. The northeastern and northern electric networks will be combined soon, and with the completion of the Three Gorges Power-Transmission Project, the interconnected networks in middle China will take shape.