China Southern Power Grid (CSG) will invest more in original technology research and development and continuously raise the ratio of its input in basic research and original innovation, according to a newly published three-year action plan of the company on building itself into a strong technology-driven enterprise.

By 2025, the company’s spending in original technology R&D will account for at least 20 percent of its overall expenditure on technological research.

Meanwhile, by then, CSG will have obtained about 20,000 valid invention patents and established three state-level service platforms for technological innovation and 33 platforms at the provincial and ministerial level.

The action plan said that CSG will mainly seek technological innovation in the fields of new electric power system, digital power grid, new power storage and artificial intelligence. It will also give priority to the cultivation and development of a group of strategic emerging industrial clusters, promote the supplies of advanced technologies, and strive to build well-organized and effective laboratory systems in order to drive major technological innovation.

CSG will promote the building of joint research institutes, strengthen cooperation with universities on technological research, platform sharing, personnel training, achievement incubation and rewards declaration, and achieve cross-sector, cross-industry and cross-discipline research collaboration among enterprises, universities and research institutes in the midst of building leading enterprises, innovative centers and alliances.

The company will also reinforce technological cooperation and exchanges with the power grid enterprises in Southeast Asian countries, continue to sharpen its competitive edge in core technologies in areas including ultra-high voltage transmission, and build long-term working mechanisms for technological cooperation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

It will deepen institutional reform in the technological sector, optimize and upgrade innovation management systems, and step up the support for technological research projects undertaken by high-caliber and young talents.

In the next three years, CSG will strive to transform itself into a world-class enterprise through efforts to accomplish first-class managerial systems, talents, technological research, innovation platforms, innovative results and ecology. The company is dedicated to becoming an integral component of national strategic technological strength and a global innovative highland of energy, and achieving high-quality development through technological advancement, in a bid to help facilitate the country’s energy transformation and technological innovation.