In 1999, the State Council approved the "Notification on Accelerating the Reform of Rural Power Systems and Enhancing Rural Power Management" (the State Council Doc. The reform introduced, among other things, a practice whereby rural and urban residents in one province would pay the same price for electricity. In 2002, the State Council's "Circular on Program of Power System Reform" (the State Council Doc. No.5 2002) introduced the practice of "Separation of Power Plants from Grid, and Bidding for Generation", and the State Power Corporation was split into the two power grid companies and five power generation groups.