Since the beginning of summer, some provinces in China have continued to heat up, while other regions have accelerated the resumption of work and production, and power demand has risen rapidly. According to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's dispatch power generation capacity reached 27.854 billion kilowatt-hours on July 13, with the maximum dispatch load reaching 1.222 billion kilowatts, both hitting record highs.
In the face of the "onslaught" of electricity demand, this year's peak summer power supply is guaranteed? In the second half of the year, how can China's power industry achieve higher quality development under the premise of ensuring security of supply?
Peak-peak summer power is guaranteed
"With sufficient fuel and good water supply, China's overall power supply capacity can meet electricity consumption demand." Said Jiang Debin, deputy director of the data and statistics center of the China Electricity Council.
By the end of May this year, China's installed full-caliber power generation capacity was 2.42 billion kilowatts, with non-fossil energy generating capacity at 1.16 billion kilowatts, accounting for 47.9 percent, and coal generating capacity at 1.11 billion kilowatts, accounting for 45.8 percent, according to the ITU.
"From the power supply factors, the steady generation of power enterprises is supported." Jiang Debin said that at present, major power generation enterprises in accordance with the CPC Central Committee, The State Council "will not allow the occurrence of power cuts" requirements, full procurement of coal, coal storage power plant is relatively high.
Since the beginning of this year, coal-producing provinces have actively tapped their production potential while ensuring safe, clean and efficient utilization of coal, and advanced production capacity has been effectively released. In the first five months of this year, China's coal output reached 1.81 billion tons, up 10.4 percent year on year, according to statistics. Natural gas output was 92.4 billion cubic meters, up 5.8 percent year on year. Since June, China's coal output has maintained a high level.
At the same time, the relevant authorities have accelerated the development of renewable energy, optimized grid dispatching, increased hydropower supply, reduced thermal coal consumption, maintained safe and full utilization of nuclear power, and promoted the full utilization of wind and solar power.
Meteorological department forecast analysis, this summer national water situation is generally good, conducive to hydropower production. In the first five months of this year, the country's hydropower capacity grew 22.4 percent year-on-year, well above the 7.6-percent average growth rate over the past 12 years. In addition, the construction of large wind power photovoltaic bases focusing on desert, gobi and desert areas is proceeding smoothly. The first batch of projects have started over 95 million kW. In addition, some key projects such as supporting power supply and transmission lines are put into operation, providing strong support for the power balance during peak summer.
"At present, there is an overall balance between power supply and demand across the country, and there is no orderly use of electricity or power rationing." Itu secretary-general Hao Yingjie said, although the recent acceleration of enterprises to resume work and production and superimposed high temperature weather, pulling Hebei, Shandong, Shaanxi and other places electricity load hit a record high, but power enterprises are in accordance with the national deployment and requirements, made sufficient preparations in advance, to ensure the national economic production and life of electricity demand.
However, domestic and foreign epidemic fluctuations, macroeconomic operation, fuel supply, temperature and precipitation and other factors have brought uncertainties to the prediction of energy supply and demand, including electricity. To this, the National Development and Reform Commission economic operation regulation, Li Yunqing, said the next step, will continue to strengthen energy ChanGong store sales system, stick to protect for stabilizing price target, pays special attention to the policies and measures to carry out the land, completes the energy for all the work, to ensure energy supply security and stability of summer peaks, ensure the people's livelihood and economic and social development can use demand.
Electricity consumption will increase rapidly in the second half of the year
"As electricity cannot be stored on a large scale, power generation and consumption need to be balanced in real time, so the growth of full-aperture power generation is basically in line with the growth of electricity consumption. "Our overall forecast for the growth of electricity consumption in the second half is that the growth rate in the second half is significantly higher than that in the first half." Jiang debin said.
Experts said that with the improvement of the epidemic prevention and control situation in the second half of the year and the further weakening of its impact on the economy and society, the effects of various national policies and measures to stabilize growth will gradually appear. Considering the low base effect of the same period last year, the growth rate of electricity consumption will be significantly increased in the second half of the year.
In the second half of this year, China's electricity consumption is expected to grow by around 7.0% year-on-year, about 4 percentage points higher than the growth rate in the first half of this year, according to calculations by THE China Electricity And Telecommunications Union. Given the current warmer temperatures in central and eastern China and the acceleration of macroeconomic recovery in the second half of the year, the final growth rate of electricity consumption is expected to be even higher than the above forecast.
"In addition to the continuous growth of power demand, China's power industry will also show the acceleration of energy structure adjustment, continuous carbon reduction and efficiency improvement in energy production, continuous improvement in the optimal allocation of power grid resources, and significant growth in the transaction scale of the power market in the second half of the year." Said Zhang Lin, deputy director of the planning and development Department of THE Itu.
On the one hand, according to the requirements of "building a new power system with new energy as the main body" put forward by the state, China's new energy generation will continue to maintain rapid growth in the second half of the year. It is estimated that by the end of this year, China's installed power generation capacity will reach about 2.6 billion kw, of which the total installed power generation capacity of non-fossil energy will reach about 1.3 billion KW, accounting for about 50% of the total installed capacity for the first time. The overall electric power production is characterized by further improvement of electric production capacity and further green and low-carbon generation installed structure.
On the other hand, according to the Implementation Plan of national Coal Power Unit Transformation and Upgrading, during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the scale of coal power energy-saving and carbon reduction transformation should be no less than 350 million kW, the scale of heat supply transformation should strive to reach 50 million kW, and the flexible transformation should be completed with 200 million kW, which means that coal consumption can be saved by more than 50 million tons. We will increase the consumption capacity of new energy by over 50 million kw.
In January this year, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "guidance on accelerating the construction of a unified national power market system". In the past six months, the construction of the national unified electricity market has been steadily promoted. At present, the medium and long-term inter-provincial and intra-provincial electricity trading mechanism has been basically established and normalized operation has been realized. The construction of inter-provincial and intra-provincial spot pilot market has made positive progress.
"In the future, China's electricity market will play a more positive role in promoting energy transformation, ensuring safe electricity supply, optimizing resource allocation and promoting new energy consumption." Zhang Lin said.
Energy consumption double control to "carbon double control"
Since the beginning of this year, relevant departments have issued a series of policy documents, including the "14th Five-Year Plan for Modern Energy System", "14th Five-year Plan for The Development of New Energy storage" and "Implementation Plan for promoting the High-quality development of New Energy in the New Era", to facilitate the transformation and development of the power industry.
"The state proposes to create conditions for an early shift from dual controls on energy consumption to dual controls on total carbon emissions and carbon intensity. For the power industry, it is necessary to combine energy saving, efficiency improvement and carbon reduction closely together, and gradually transfer the energy saving policy orientation to carbon reduction policy as the leading orientation." Itu planning and development director Pan Li said.
Pan Li said that under the "dual carbon" target, the power industry should accelerate the clean and low-carbon transformation. We need to strike a balance among security, low-carbon and transformation costs, strengthen innovation leadership, and give full play to the role of carbon markets and other market mechanisms in reducing emissions at low cost. The electric power industry is one of the key industries for carbon emission control. It should not only undertake its own emission reduction responsibility, but also serve the clean and low-carbon transformation development of the whole society.
On July 16, 2021, the national carbon market was officially launched for trading. Over the past year, the overall operation of the national carbon market has been stable, with the cumulative trading volume of carbon emission quotas reaching about 194 million tons, totaling 8.49 billion yuan. In terms of actual effect, with the normal operation of the national carbon market, China's national certified voluntary emission reduction offset mechanism has come into play, and some control enterprises have used the national certified voluntary emission reduction to carry out quota offset. In terms of the amount of carbon market implemented, the completion rate of the first implementation period of the national carbon market reached 99.5%, which was a smooth conclusion.
"The implementation mechanism has further promoted the transformation of the energy structure." Pan Li said, by setting the carbon emissions quota allocation, to improve the carbon market trading mechanism, will effectively promote the thermal power layout adjustment and structure optimization, promote the stock of reconstruction of coal energy conservation, heat supply, reduce carbon emissions intensity, this also is in the second half of the year and the whole during the period of "difference", to realize the effective way to develop high quality of electric power industry.
