URUMQI, April 24 (Xinhua) -- Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region will invest 618 million yuan (97.8 million U.S. dollars) this year to construct and upgrade the power grid in the most poverty-stricken rural areas.

A total of 261 impoverished villages in southern Xinjiang will benefit from the investment, which is part of a grander poverty alleviation program that will earmark 2.65 billion yuan to upgrade the power grid in Xinjiang's rural areas, according to the Xinjiang branch of State Grid Corporation of China.

Within the next three years, the regional government will invest 1.62 billion yuan in upgrading the power grid in 22 poverty-stricken counties. A total of 782 poor villages will benefit from the project.

To address problems like low voltage and insufficient supply, China started electricity power grid upgrades in rural areas in 2016 to ensure stable nationwide coverage by 2020.

By the end of 2017, China had upgraded the power grid in 78,533 villages, according to the National Energy Administration.