China broke ground on Tuesday on an ultra-high voltage transmission project, a critical green artery designed to funnel massive amounts of renewable energy from the western parts of Inner Mongolia autonomous region to the industrial heartland of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei province.

The direct current line, spanning 700 kilometers with a transmission capacity of 8 million kilowatts, is expected to go into operation by 2027, said its operator State Grid Corp of China, the world's largest power utility company.

The 17.2 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) project is the first UHV line in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region specifically engineered to tap into the national strategy to build massive wind and solar bases in the country's vast sand, Gobi, and desert regions, it said.

UHV transmission lines refer to power transmission cables operating at voltages exceeding 800 kilovolts of direct current or 1,000 kV of alternating current.

zhengxin@chinadaily.com.cn