KUNMING — Southwest China's Yunnan province has sent a record amount of electricity to the eastern regions so far this year.

As of Dec 8, the amount exceeded 140 billion kWh for the first time, representing an annual increase of 4.6 percent, according to the Yunnan subsidiary of China Southern Power Grid.

Yunnan has exceeded its annual transmission target for the west-east electricity transmission program by 4.4 kWh, it said.

The province has sent over 1 billion kWh of electricity to Hainan since June when it started transmitting power to the country's southern-most island province.

Yunnan will build more power transmission lines. It is expected to increase its maximum power transmission capacity by 25 percent to 39.15 million kilowatts by the end of 2020.

The hydropower from Yunnan accounts for over 60 percent of all the China Southern Power Grid transfers in the west-east electricity transmission program.