Economic Daily: The new energy industry is moving towards high-end

The new installed capacity of wind power photovoltaic power generation exceeded 200 million kilowatts, the cumulative installed capacity of household photovoltaic power exceeded 100 million kilowatts, and the proportion of wind power and photovoltaic power generation in the whole society exceeded 15%...... Since 2023, the pace of green and low-carbon energy transformation in China has accelerated, new energy has maintained a good momentum of rapid development, and a number of data have set new historical records.

At the recent National Energy Work Conference, Zhang Jianhua, director of the National Energy Administration, said that it is necessary to continue to optimize and adjust the energy structure, vigorously improve the level of safe and reliable substitution of new energy, and help complete the "double carbon" goal and task.

The installed capacity reached a new high

The sky is blue, the grassland is covered with snow, and 701 large wind turbines stand along the ridge, sending electricity to light up the lights of thousands of homes. On December 10, the Xing'an League's 3 million kilowatt wind power project of China General Nuclear Power Group was connected to the grid at full capacity, which will provide more than 10 billion kilowatt hours of clean electricity every year, equivalent to reducing standard coal consumption by about 2.96 million tons and carbon dioxide emissions by about 8.02 million tons, equivalent to afforestation of 345,000 mu.

Li Chuangjun, director of the Department of New and Renewable Energy of the National Energy Administration, said that Inner Mongolia is a key area for the construction of new energy bases in China, and the 3 million kilowatt wind power project of CGN Xing'an League is the largest wind power project in the first batch of large bases in the country, and it is also the largest single onshore wind power project that has been completed in the country, achieving the first in many industries and having a good demonstration effect.

On November 29, the largest single photovoltaic sand control project in China, the Kubuqi 2 million kilowatt photovoltaic sand control project of the Mengxi base of the Three Gorges Group, was connected to the grid for power generation, with an average annual power generation of about 4.1 billion kilowatt hours, which can save about 1.23 million tons of standard coal every year, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 3.19 million tons, and restore and control the desert area of 100,000 mu.

Compared with the piecemeal distributed new energy construction, the base-based and large-scale construction of wind and solar bases is more conducive to rapidly increasing the proportion of new energy, and will become an important new energy development direction in the future. "Planning and building large-scale wind power and photovoltaic bases focusing on deserts, Gobi and desert areas is the top priority of new energy development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, which is of great significance for improving energy security capabilities, promoting clean and low-carbon energy transformation, building a new energy system, and supporting the realization of the goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality as scheduled." Li Chuangjun said.

The data shows that the construction of China's wind power photovoltaic base is progressing smoothly. As of the end of November, the first batch has been completed and connected to the grid of 45.16 million kilowatts, and the second and third batches have been approved for more than 50 million kilowatts. As of the end of October, the country's installed wind power capacity was 404 million kilowatts, photovoltaic power generation capacity was 536 million kilowatts, and biomass power generation capacity was 44 million kilowatts. It is expected that the installed capacity of wind power and photovoltaic power generation in China will exceed 1 billion kilowatts by the end of the year.

The level of consumption is the core indicator to measure the high-quality development of new energy. With the rapid increase in the installed capacity of new energy, how to better "digest" the new green power has become a global problem. The data shows that China's new energy utilization rate has continued to maintain a high level, exceeding 95% for many years since 2018. As the world's largest country in terms of new energy installation, China has achieved a high level of new energy utilization, which provides an effective sample for the world to solve the problem of new energy consumption.

On December 20, in the Jiujiuling area in the northeast of Jianghe Township, Tianzhi County, Guangxi, the wind turbines began to rotate and the current was smoothly integrated into the power grid, marking the first successful grid connection of the Tianzhi Lotus Wind Farm Project.

Li Mingfang, assistant general manager of China Energy Construction China Power Engineering Development and Investment Company, introduced that coupled with the follow-up pumped storage and high-efficiency thermal power construction, the Chongzuo "wind, solar, water, fire and storage" integrated integrated energy base project covers all conventional power sources and new energy sources with development conditions in inland areas, with a total scale of 10.84 million kilowatts, of which new energy installations account for 62% and power generation accounts for 56%.

The reporter learned that through regional co-ordination, overall optimization, orderly development, and complementary utilization, the Chongzuo comprehensive energy base project has broken the traditional single development model, built a diversified power production pattern, improved energy utilization efficiency, improved the stability of new energy power output, and enhanced the power system's ability and comprehensive benefits to absorb intermittent renewable energy such as wind power and photovoltaic power generation. In order to improve the capacity of new energy consumption, China has steadily promoted the construction of new power systems and improved the balance and regulation capacity of the power system. Improving the peak regulation capacity of coal-fired power units and increasing the proportion of power sources that can be flexibly adjusted by the power grid have become the main measures to solve the contradiction of peak regulation in the short term in China. In 2023, China will arrange a total of about 190 million kilowatts of "three reforms" such as the annual coal-fired power flexibility transformation.

Pumped storage is the safest and most stable energy storage mode at this stage, China in increasing construction efforts at the same time, optimize the pumping storage unit scheduling strategy, continue to improve the level of pumped storage utilization, as of the end of November, this year approved 31 new pumped storage projects, with a total installed capacity of more than 40 million kilowatts, put into operation and under construction scale of 200 million kilowatts. The new energy storage has the advantages of fast response, flexible configuration, and short construction period, and more than 24 million kilowatts of new energy storage projects will be completed and put into operation in 2023.

Green electricity can be generated, and it must be sent away. In 2023, the Baihetan-Zhejiang UHVDC project will be put into operation, and the four UHVDC projects in Jinshang-Hubei, Longdong-Shandong, Ningxia-Hunan, and Hami-Chongqing will be approved to start. The State Grid has built a total of 35 UHV projects of "19 interchanges and 16 straight", and the length of UHV projects in operation and under construction is about 56,000 kilometers, which has significantly improved the long-distance transmission capacity of China's power grid and effectively promoted the large-scale consumption of new energy.