LHASA, Oct. 31 -- The Qinghai-Tibet Power Grid Interconnection Project has been completed and went into trial operation early Monday morning, according to local authorities.

A converter station in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet Autonomous Region, went into operation at about 3 a.m. Monday, according to Peng Kai, chief engineer with the Hubei Electric Power Transmission Distribution Engineering Company, which runs the project.

The opening of the Lhasa station, located at the end of the power grid, symbolizes the completion of the entire project. The trial operation period will end on Nov. 15, according to Yu Le, chief engineer of the DC Construction Branch of the State Grid Corporation.

The entire project, with a total investment of 16.2 billion yuan (2.54 billion U.S. dollars), consists of three parts: a transmission line from Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province, to the city of Golmud in the center of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau; a transmission line from Golmud to Lhasa and power grid facilities in Tibet.

As one of 23 key projects outlined in the 2010 Western Development Strategy, the Qinghai-Tibet project aims to ease power shortages in Tibet and optimize energy distribution in Qinghai.

According to statistics from the Tibet branch of the State Grid, the region's annual power consumption is about 1.6 billion kilowatt-hours and mostly relies on hydroelectric power sources.

The project is expected to provide 4 billion kilowatt-hours to the region annually.