KUNMING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Southwest China's Yunnan Province on Monday inked photovoltaic project deals with a total generation capacity of 10 gigawatts in a green drive to alleviate its power supply shortage.

Yunnan Provincial Energy Investment Group and Yunnan Provincial Investment Holdings Group signed the project deals with parties from seven prefectures and cities in Yunnan.

The total investment of the contracted projects is nearly 50 billion yuan (about 7.2 billion U.S. dollars). The first batch of 64 projects, with a total installed capacity of 4 gigawatts, will involve an investment of nearly 20 billion yuan.

This first batch of projects, scheduled to be connected to the grid within the year, will provide 5.2 billion kilowatt-hours of green power to Yunnan Province every year after going into operation.

Hu Jun, chairman of Yunnan Provincial Energy Investment Group, said that these projects are of great significance to gradually alleviating the power supply shortage in Yunnan and accelerating the new energy business growth of provincial enterprises.