State Grid Corporation of China

State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC; Chinese: 国家电网公司; pinyin: Guójiā Diànwǎng Gōngsī) is the largest electric utility company in the world. It is state-owned and transmits and distributes power in China. The power distributor is headquartered in Xicheng District, Beijing and manages distribution from four regional subsidiaries.

After the electricity "Plant-Grid Separation" reform in early 2002, the assets of State Electric Power Corporation (国家电力公司) were divided into the five "power generation groups" that retained the power plants and five regional subsidiaries belonging to the State Grid Corporation of China in Beijing. The company is the seventh largest in the world according to the 2011 Fortune Global 500 ranking.

History

China began an initiative to reform the country's power sector in a three-stage process in 1986. In the third and final stage in March 2002 the State Council of the People's Republic of China put into effect a plan to restructure the country's electric power system in order to create competition and separate generation and transmission functions. The State Grid Corporation of China was founded on December 29, 2002, when the restructuring divided the former State Power Corporation of China into two grid companies, five generation groups and four accessorial business companies. The two grid companies created were the State Grid Corporation of China and a smaller China Southern Power Grid Company. At its creation, the company had a generation capacity of 6.47 gigawatts.