By Yu Huapeng
News, Special Report, Issue 567 to 571
Translated by Tang Xiangyang
Original articles: [Part i, Part ii, Part iii, Part iv]

The State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) is currently working on provisions to allow private capital to invest in the power industry – both the generating sector and the national grid, which until now has always been a state monopoly.

The commission will allow investors into sectors such as thermal power, hydropower and nuclear power, and, say people familiar with the issue, these investors may be able to hold stakes in the national grid but with more restrictions.

In 2002 and 2003, in order to support manufacturing and power generation businesses, State Grid founded 805 provincial, city-level and town-level subsidiaries. It was short on capital so it invited all 170,000 employees of those subsidiaries to invest. They became share-holders and have been receiving dividends ever since. However, State Grid has now started buying out these small individual share-holders at no more than three times their initial investment.

This buy-out, scheduled to be completed at the end of this year, is being carried out in order to clear out share-holders from old businesses that mix the main business of power transmission with other small auxillary services. Part of a broader reform, it will pave the way for the ultimate separation of core and non-core business and, in theory, further reduce conflicts of interest in the industry.