State Grid Corporation of China, the country’s state-owned power grid company, presented three programs on Oct. 29 in Yerevan, Armenia, that it says protect birds and habitats along its network. The presentation took place at a China Corner side event at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP17), where a report series on biodiversity conservation by Chinese companies was launched featuring the company as a case study, according to its press release.
COP17 ran from Oct. 19 to 30 and was the first global review of progress toward the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in 2022 with targets for 2030. The conference closed by adopting the Yerevan Pathway, a negotiated response to the outcome of that review.
The three programs, as described by the company
| Program | What it does | Reported scale |
|---|---|---|
| Birds’ Guardian Grid | Protects migratory birds around power lines | 24 provinces, more than 40 migratory bird habitats and all four of China’s flyways; more than 16,000 birds rescued or protected |
| Nests of Life | Artificial nests so birds avoid dangerous spots on towers, with a record kept for each nest | From Sanjiangyuan on the Tibetan Plateau to high-altitude grasslands in six provincial-level regions |
| Green Power Ark | Zero-carbon electricity for remote habitats through wind, solar and storage microgrids | 17 national-level protected areas in nine provinces |
The company also presented a report on its Shanghai subsidiary describing how it builds biodiversity criteria into planning, design, construction, grid operations and its supply chain in a megacity.
What was already known
These initiatives are not unprecedented. Based on a China Daily feature published in June 2026, the artificial-nest initiative was launched in 2016 throughout Sanjiangyuan, located in Qinghai province, successfully setting up over 5,300 nests by 2024. Furthermore, that same media source traces the Green Power Ark back to 2022, noting 13 operational locations by 2023, while highlighting that the organization has safeguarded and rescued upward of 15,000 birds since 2021.
The underlying problem, according to that report, cuts both ways: birds nesting or perching on towers and cables can cause outages, and exposed conductors can electrocute them.
