ENG-2000 — Page 290

LAND, PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES

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Electricity for HEC's supply areas is supplied from the Lamma Power Station. At the end of 2000, total installed capacity at the Lamma Power Station was 3 305MW. In May, the Government approved HEC's new power station at the Lamma Extension and the installation of the first 300 MW gas combined-cycle generator there. The unit is scheduled to be commissioned in 2004. HEC's transmission system operates at 275kV, 132kV and 66kV and distribution is effected mainly at 11kV and 380 volts.

The Castle Peak Power Company Limited (CAPCO), which is 60 per cent owned by ExxonMobil Energy Limited (formerly known as Exxon Energy Limited) and 40 per cent by CLP Power, supplies electricity to CLP Power from its Black Point (1 875MW), Castle Peak (4 108MW) and Penny's Bay (300MW) power stations, with the total installed capacity being 6 283MW. Two more 312.5MW generators are scheduled to be commissioned at the Black Point power station during the period of 2005-06.

The associated transmission and distribution systems are wholly owned by CLP Power. Its transmission system operates at 400kV, 132kV and 66kV, and distribution is effected mainly at 33kV, 11kV and 380 volts.

The CLP Power and HEC transmission systems are interconnected by a cross- harbour link. This provides emergency back-up and achieves cost savings to consumers through economic energy transfers between the two systems and a reduction in the amount of generating capacity that needs to be kept as spinning reserve against the tripping of other units. The interconnection, commissioned in 1981, currently has an installed capacity of 720 MVA.

CLP Power's system is also interconnected with that of the Guangdong Electric Power Holding Company (formerly named the Guangdong General Power Company) in the Mainland and electricity is exported to Guangdong Province. Such sales are made from existing reserve generating capacity and are governed by an agreement with the Government, signed in March 1992, under which CLP Power's consumers receive priority of supply and 80 per cent of the profit from the sales.

In 1985, the Hong Kong Nuclear Investment Company (a wholly owned subsidiary of the CLP Holdings Limited) and the Guangdong Nuclear Investment Company (wholly owned by the Chinese Ministry of Nuclear Industry) established the Guangdong Nuclear Power Joint Venture Company, to build and operate a nuclear power station at Daya Bay in Guangdong. This comprises two 984MW pressurised water reactors which went into commercial operation in February and May 1994, respectively. CLP Power undertook to buy about 70 per cent of the station's power to meet part of the longer-term demand for electricity in its supply area.

Through its affiliated company, the Hong Kong Pumped Storage Development Company Limited, CLP Power has the right to use 50 per cent of the 1 200 MW capacity of Phase 1 of the Guangzhou Pumped Storage Power Station, at Conghua. Off-peak electricity from the CAPCO system and Guangdong Nuclear Power Station is used to pump water from a lower reservoir to an upper one. The water is allowed to flow downhill during the day to generate electricity to meet Hong Kong's peak demand.

The Government signed Demand Side Management (DSM) Agreements with the respective power companies in May and approved the companies' DSM Resource Plans in June. The power companies implemented their three-year DSM programmes,