HOHHOT - A project to transfer electricity from the China's resource-rich west to energy-thirsty east started construction on Monday in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

The Shanghaimiao power transmission base, designed for coal-fired power generation to Shandong province in east China, is located in Erdos, a city with one-sixth of the country's coal resources, in Inner Mongolia.

It is the second national power transmission project being built in Inner Mongolia following one in Xilingol in May 2015.

At an estimated cost of 35 billion yuan ($5 billion), the project is designed with an installed capacity of 10 million kw, which is expected to deliver 55 billion kwh of power with the consumption of 30 million tons of local coal annually.

According to the national plan, nine power transmission bases and 12 major power channels are included in China's west-east power transmission program.

A total of 70 million kw of capacity is expected to be installed, which will satisfy the power demands of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions by 2020.