State Grid Corp. of China, the nation's largest electricity distributor, has restored power to almost 300,000 homes, after the country's strongest earthquake in 58 years damaged generators and transmission lines.
State Grid has resumed electricity supplies to 274,813 households among the 684,248 homes in the inland provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu that were disconnected from the national grid, the Beijing-based company said in a faxed statement today. As many as 39 State Grid workers were killed in the magnitude 7.9 quake, while 11 were seriously injured.

The May 12 earthquake damaged power infrastructure in China's southwest and may cut the nation's energy demand. The State Electricity Regulatory Commission, China's power industry regulator, yesterday ordered round-the-clock monitoring at generation units and distribution networks and told utilities to report accidents immediately.

"It is difficult to fully restore power supplies to Sichuan province as there are still some counties we cannot reach," Zhang Haiyang, a State Grid spokesman, said by mobile phone from the province today.

Four 500-kilovolt power lines are still down in Sichuan as of 6 a.m. local time today, State Grid said. The power distributor has deployed medical and technical teams to attend to the injured and fix damaged equipment, it said.

China Southern Power Grid Co., the smaller rival of State Grid, has repaired power lines in Yunnan province, south of Sichuan, the company said in a statement yesterday.

Huaneng Group

China Huaneng Group, the nation's biggest power producer, said yesterday it lost contact with its Taipingyi plant in Sichuan after the quake. The company will donate 8 million yuan ($1.14 million) to relief work, it said. Huaneng's Sichuan unit has a total generating capacity of 1.88 gigawatts, it said.

China Power Investment Corp., the country's fifth-largest power producer, couldn't reach 18 of its workers at a hydropower station in Sichuan's Wenchuan county, the epicenter of the quake, the China Electricity Council said in a statement on its Web site today.

About 8.74 gigawatts of power, more than 1 percent of China's total generating capacity, was idled in the quake-hit areas, the National Development and Reform Commission , the nation's economic planner, said today. State Grid said yesterday 5.5 gigawatts of electricity went offline.

As many as 391 hydro-dams in five provinces are in "dangerous condition" after the quake, including 2 "semi- large" ones, the commission said, without elaborating.