ABSTRACT
Over the past half century, China has witnessed tremendous growth in the development and delivery of rural electricity services. The initial challenge of rural electrification was tremendous, especially in light of the size of China’s population, with most people living in rural areas. The success in the development of rural electrification can be attributed to several major factors in a program fairly unique in the developing world. They include the development of local and regional power companies that always had a high degree of independence, even though they were public companies. These local distribution companies were supported by state investments in the construction of both local and regional grids for distribution, and they also had assistance from the country’s power industry. In other countries, rural electrification extended from central companies. In China, however, many local companies with state support were established and then over time spread out and were integrated into the national grid program.
