Lin Boqiang: How to Optimize Power Distribution to Adapt to Economic "New Normal"

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Release time:

2015-06-09

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Due to the new normal of economic development, the development of China's power industry will face three new characteristics, which are both challenges and opportunities for power development: first, the growth rate of power demand will slow down; second, the economic transformation will change the power load curve, making the load The peak-valley difference becomes larger; the third is the increase in the share of new energy. If the traditional new power plant is used to deal with the rapid growth of the highest load, it will inevitably lead to a decrease in average utilization hours and a decrease in unit load rate, which will have a negative impact on the efficiency of the entire power system. On the other hand, simply reducing the installed capacity of thermal power to improve the utilization hours may not be conducive to the safety of the power system. One of the indicators of safe and reliable power supply in modern power grid is to ensure that the power system has sufficient reserve capacity to cope with the inevitable impact of peak power consumption. Therefore, the challenge requires optimizing the power layout, focusing on how to meet peak loads (especially in the eastern region) without affecting the overall load level and efficiency of the power system.

Generally speaking, there are two ways to optimize the layout of electric power: first, affected by the resource endowment and load characteristics of provinces in the region, the power balance is different, and the optimal allocation of resources can be realized through cross-provincial (regional) allocation, so as to ensure the reserve capacity of the system in a larger range; second, natural gas power stations are developed in the eastern region as peak shaving power supply, and other peak shaving methods are combined to optimize the power layout and improve the efficiency of coal-fired units, make the coal-fired units operate in the designed high-efficiency area as much as possible, less involved in peak shaving or no deep peak shaving, and improve the low energy efficiency.

At present, the domestic peak adjustment measures are still not perfect, and there are still unreasonable places in the investment mechanism, business model and electricity price policy related to energy storage. By increasing the capacity of units with good peak shaving performance, nuclear power as the base load and wind power, solar energy and other power sources with strong randomness can be more connected to the grid, increase the share of clean energy power generation, reduce dependence on fossil energy, and improve my country This is also an important way to optimize the power layout. Considering the constraints of environment and resources, the need of transformation of economic development mode, the advantages of coastal nuclear power and new energy development, the layout of clean energy power will also bring new challenges, such as how much new cost, how to share the cost, and what is the optimal investment path.

In addition to power-side layout optimization, energy conservation and demand-side management are also effective measures to meet the challenges of power development. Power demand side management includes load management, energy efficiency management, and orderly power consumption. Electricity price can most effectively adjust the supply and demand relationship in different periods, improve the utilization of electricity in the trough period, and realize "peak cutting and valley filling". The feasible electricity price measures in the world mainly include the ordinary time-sharing electricity price of industry and commerce, the time-sharing electricity price of residents, the peak electricity price, the interruptible electricity price, the seasonal electricity price, the abundant electricity price, the capacity electricity price, and the differential electricity price of the high energy-consuming industry. At present, China has implemented some price measures aimed at energy conservation and demand-side management. For example, in order to limit the blind development of high-energy-consuming industries and eliminate backward production capacity, a differential electricity price policy has been implemented since 2004; on the electricity consumption side of residents, in July 2012, the step-by-step incremental electricity price reform plan for residents' living electricity was implemented nationwide, and time-of-use electricity prices were also selectively implemented in some regions. But this is obviously not enough. The system design of demand side management is very important to the implementation effect. The efficiency evaluation of existing measures will help to revise the relevant policies and ensure their rationality. Further optimization of the power layout also involves the balance between the east and the west. The increase in factor costs and environmental costs in the east will force the transfer of high energy-consuming industries to the west, and the transfer of industries and resource flows in the east and west will become a feature of future economic development. In this process, how can the government influence and grasp the speed and scale of the transfer in terms of policy, and how can it protect the ecological environment of the west while developing the west? On the one hand, it is necessary to constrain the energy environment of the eastern region and predict the energy consumption and emissions of the economic development of the eastern region; on the other hand, it is necessary to predict the growth of the western region and the requirements for energy and power infrastructure. From these two aspects, the potential and spatial scope of the transfer process are obtained, and the different situations of industrial transfer between the east and the west are analyzed.

Historically, the clean environment in developed countries is often at the cost of environmental pollution in underdeveloped countries, which is a process of transfer of high energy-consuming industries. Therefore, in my country's economic transformation and environmental governance, the underdeveloped western region is likely to pay the price for pollution control in the east, that is, the pollution transfer from the east to the west. The government needs to balance the pollution transfer process as much as possible, reduce pollution in the west as much as possible through policy coordination, need more prudent top-level policy design, sort out the mature experience of international policies related to regional protection, and put forward feasible solutions in measure selection and path design through optional policy combination.

The transfer of high energy-consuming industries from east to west and the development of energy in the west will lead to the re-distribution and balance of energy and power supply. How can energy and power infrastructure be built to reduce waste and emissions lock-in? The government needs to provide guidance on the scale and development path of energy and power infrastructure construction in the east and west in terms of high energy-consuming industries from east to west and energy transmission from west to east, and use the policy design triggered by environmental governance as a specific starting point., Control the eastern energy (coal) consumption, accelerate the adjustment of the eastern energy structure and the development of clean energy, take environmental capacity as the target, and guide the transfer of high energy-consuming industries. The reconstruction of the energy and power supply pattern in the western region can be achieved by pre-setting its energy development goals and environmental paths, involving the choice of different energy and power infrastructure supporting schemes, and re-estimating the growth of energy and power consumption in the western region.

Lin Boqiang (Famous Energy Economist, Director of Collaborative Innovation Center of Energy Economy, Xiamen University)

Original Title: How to Optimize Power Distribution to Adapt to Economic "New Normal"

(Reprinted from Polaris Power Network)