Chinese growing pains

China´s economy has increased significantly, the annual average increase in gross domestic product (GDP) is more than 8% since 1978. With the sustained economic growth, the living standards of most people have improved, and more and more people have moved from rural areas to urban areas. In the long term, the extraordinarily high GDP growth drives China´s increasing consumption of electricity. The urbanization requires high-quality and more reliable electric power supply. In China, the discussions on distribution systems are mainly about the power distribution systems for urban areas (called an urban distribution network in Chinese). In this paper, we will focus on the distribution systems in urban areas in China.