China sets a new world record in energy with a titanic feat at its Tianwan solar plant and 19.45-kilometre 220 kV line

The sun is barely up over the Yellow Sea when the new power line at Tianwan hums to life. It’s almost silent at first, a faint crackle in the cold air over Jiangsu Province in eastern China. Gulls wheel over the coastline, fishing boats carve silver wakes across the water, and somewhere on the horizon, a titanic solar plant begins to feed a river of electrons into a 19.45‑kilometre, 220 kV transmission line that now holds a world record. Standing beneath those tall lattice towers, you’d hear nothing more than the whisper of wires in the wind—yet that quiet line might say more about the future of energy than any speech or summit.

A titanic solar feat on the far side of the sea

China’s Tianwan solar project doesn’t have quite the same brand recognition in Australia as the Three Gorges Dam or the Gobi Desert solar parks, but in energy circles it’s fast becoming legend. Picture a vast coastal landscape stitched with rows and rows of dark panels, angled like a million open books reading the sky. Now connect that to a meticulously engineered 19.45‑kilometre 220 kV line designed to carry every usable photon the sun can throw at it into the national grid with minimal loss.

Those numbers matter. At 220 kilovolts and almost 20 kilometres long, the line sets a new benchmark for integrating large‑scale solar directly into a dense, high‑demand grid. It’s not just about length or voltage; it’s the combination of capacity, efficiency, and stability that has energy engineers quietly impressed and, in some cases, a little envious.

On the ground at Tianwan, the sensory experience is strangely calm for something so powerful. The solar arrays throw back a low, shimmering heat in the mid‑morning sun, the air buzzing with insects above the panels. The towers that carry the 220 kV line stretch away into a hazy distance like a steel caravan, each arm carefully balanced, insulators gleaming a pale green‑white against the sky. Substations at each end are a forest of metal and cable, but everything is tidily arranged, as clinical as a lab. It feels less like an industrial site and more like a meticulously organised experiment in how far renewables can go when a government decides not to blink.

Why this record matters Down Under

Sitting in Sydney, Melbourne, or Perth, it’s easy to file another “China sets world record” story into the mental drawer marked “interesting but far away”. Yet the Tianwan line speaks directly to challenges Australians know all too well: distance, intermittency, and the art of getting power from where it’s generated to where it’s needed, without losing half of it on the way.

Australia has the sun. We know that. The outback glows under brutal, generous sunlight, the kind that bakes steering wheels and fades verandah paint in a season. But our big solar and wind resources live a long way from the cities hugging the coasts. That’s why Australians keep hearing about “transmission”—that unglamorous cousin of panels and turbines—whenever the national energy conversation heats up.

China’s Tianwan project is significant not because it proves anything about the sun that we didn’t know already, but because it showcases a fearless approach to grid‑scale integration. Rather than nibble around the edges, they’ve built a line purpose‑designed to carry a huge pulse of renewable power, every single day, with tight control on losses and voltage stability. That’s exactly the sort of challenge staring at Australia’s energy planners as they map new lines across inland New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, and Western Australia.

How do you move sunlight like this?

If you’ve ever driven under a high‑voltage line on a dry, hot day, you may have heard that faint hiss—the sound of invisible power, strong enough to run a city, hanging in the air just above your car. At Tianwan, the engineering is all about making sure that hiss translates into useful power at the other end of the line, and not into wasted heat or unstable volatility.

Voltage is the key. The higher the voltage, the less energy is lost as the power travels. Cranking the line to 220 kV means the same amount of electricity can be moved with lower current, easing the burden on conductors and reducing resistive losses. The Tianwan engineers have effectively turned their line into an expressway for electrons—no scenic detours, no stop‑start traffic, just a steady flow from solar cells to substation.

In the control rooms, banks of screens track everything: line temperature, reactive power, frequency, load. Operators can watch weather fronts roll in on satellite images and see, in near real time, how cloud shadows slide across the solar array, denting output here, lifting it there. Automated systems adjust power electronics to keep the 220 kV line as calm as a taut fishing line in still water. The romance of “just plug solar into the grid” vanishes quickly; this is orchestration, not improvisation.

Australian engineers already know this dance. In the Riverina, the Darling Downs, the Mid‑North of South Australia, and the Pilbara, they are wrestling with many of the same issues: voltage control, curtailment, grid congestion, and the delicate tuning of transmission that was originally built around coal, not clouds. Watching Tianwan is like seeing a different take on the same musical score—same instruments, different conductor.

Australia’s wide brown land and the long wires ahead

Out on the Hay Plains or the Nullarbor, the sunlight can feel almost personal. It presses on the back of your neck, blanches the sky to a hard white, and turns road signs into mirages on the horizon. These are the places that make energy planners’ eyes light up: incredible solar resources, huge open spaces, and wind regimes that can dance with the weather instead of fighting it.

But then comes the question Tianwan answers so assertively: how do we actually move all that power? In Australia, long transmission lines face not only technical hurdles, but social and environmental ones. New projects criss‑crossing farms, native title land, and wildlife habitat invite scrutiny and often resistance. Where China can execute a record‑breaking line in a condensed timeframe under central direction, Australia must do it through public consultation, regulation, and negotiation.

That’s not a weakness. It’s a choice about how to balance climate urgency with local voice. Yet it means Australians need examples of what is technically possible, in order to have better arguments about what is socially and environmentally acceptable. Tianwan provides a data point: this is what a high‑capacity solar link can look like when it’s done for speed and scale.

From the perspective of an Australian grid operator, the lesson isn’t “copy China,” but “learn from the physics they’ve mastered.” Things like advanced line monitoring, high‑voltage operation, dynamic control of reactive power, and strategic siting of substations are all highly transferable. So are ideas about building solar close to industrial loads—think Hunter Valley, Kwinana, or Whyalla—rather than always pushing power thousands of kilometres from the interior.

From record-breaking line to everyday normal

Every record, by definition, is temporary. Someone, somewhere, is already sketching a line on a whiteboard that will be longer, higher‑voltage, or more heavily loaded than Tianwan’s. The real significance of China’s new feat is not that it stands alone, but that it hints at a future where such lines are boring—routine, even.

Imagine, for a moment, a future Australian summer in which the phrase “record‑breaking heat” is met not with dread about blackouts, but with a quiet confidence that the grid has been built to drink in the excess sunlight. Transmission humming from inland solar farms, rooftop PV pouring into suburban feeders, interconnectors tying states together like the fibres of one big, flexible muscle. In that world, a 19.45‑kilometre 220 kV line is just another link, not a headline.

To get there, though, requires what Tianwan represents in spades: commitment. Commitment to the long, often invisible work of upgrading poles and wires. Commitment to negotiating where those lines go and who benefits. Commitment to thinking of renewables not as a bright garnish on a fossil‑fuel plate, but as the main course the entire energy system must be built around.

Walking under the Tianwan line as the afternoon cools, the steel towers throw long shadows over low coastal scrub. The air smells of salt and dry earth. The line sings its quiet, high‑pitched song, unnoticed by most of the people in the nearby town, who go about their days with the lights on, their phones charging, their factories running. If the project succeeds, that’s exactly how it should be. The more ordinary this kind of infrastructure becomes, the more extraordinary our chances of staying within a liveable climate.

FAQs

What exactly is the Tianwan solar plant?

The Tianwan solar plant is a large-scale solar power project in China’s Jiangsu Province, located near the coast. It consists of extensive solar arrays feeding electricity into a high-capacity 220 kV transmission line, which has set a world record for its combination of length and integration at that voltage.

Why is the 19.45-kilometre 220 kV line such a big deal?

The line stands out because it’s engineered to move a substantial amount of solar power efficiently over nearly 20 kilometres at 220 kV, with low losses and high grid stability. It showcases how modern grids can absorb large volumes of variable renewable energy when transmission is specifically designed for that role.

How is this relevant to Australia’s energy transition?

Australia faces similar challenges in moving renewable energy from sunny and windy regions to coastal cities. Tianwan demonstrates technical solutions—such as high-voltage lines, advanced control systems, and careful grid integration—that can inform how Australia designs its own long-distance renewable transmission projects.

Does Australia already use lines like this?

Australia uses high-voltage transmission lines in the 132–500 kV range across the National Electricity Market, and many solar and wind projects already connect at these voltages. However, the scale and pace of dedicated renewable transmission like Tianwan’s line highlight what might become more common as Australia builds out its renewable superpower ambitions.

Will building more high-voltage lines affect local communities?

Yes, transmission projects can affect land use, visual amenity, and local ecosystems. That’s why Australia’s process involves environmental assessments, community consultation, and negotiation with landholders and Traditional Owners. The goal is to design lines that deliver climate and economic benefits while respecting local values and minimising impacts.

Can Australia realistically match or exceed what China is doing?

In absolute scale, China’s system will likely remain larger simply due to its population and industrial footprint. But on a per-capita and technology basis, Australia can absolutely match the sophistication of projects like Tianwan, and in some cases already does. The main constraints here are planning, social licence, and investment timelines, not technical capability.

What’s the main takeaway for Australians from Tianwan’s record?

The core message is that moving very large amounts of solar energy reliably is not a theoretical future—it’s happening now. For Australia, with some of the best solar resources on Earth, the question is less “can we do this?” and more “how quickly and fairly can we build the wires to make our sunlight truly count?”