Wind power in China is on the right track with unlimited potential for development

In the short term, the outcome of the game between "new and old" energy interests and responsibilities will surely be someone happy and some people worry, but in the long run, everyone will benefit from renewable energy because we breathe the same air.

Drive along the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed road for 20 kilometers to the northwest and enter Yanqing County, Beijing. If the weather is good, you can see a white matrix of windmills. These snow-white windmills are like the future warriors in combat shirts. They are stationed in narrow strips. Guanting Reservoir on both banks, this is Beijing's Guanting Wind Farm. In the canyon, the fan speed is very fast, but the development of wind power is not as smooth as the rotating fan.

After 5 years of great leap forward

The Guanting Wind Farm Project was approved in August 2006 and was built and invested by Beijing Jingneng Clean Energy Power Co., Ltd. It is a green energy project implemented in the “Olympic Application”. The civil engineering project began in early 2007 and was officially connected to the grid on January 18, 2008. The entire construction period took only one year.

Relevant person in charge of the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission once told the media that the government office wind farm can deliver green power to the grid by an average of 300,000 degrees per day to meet the household electricity needs of 100,000 households. According to calculations, after the opening of the Guanting Wind Farm, Beijing will be equivalent to reducing 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide, 782 tons of sulfur dioxide, 11 tons of carbon monoxide, and 444 tons of nitrogen oxides, and save 50,000 tons of coal.

After the world oil crisis in 1973, wind energy began to develop as a part of new energy. However, in China, until 2005, due to the release of favorable policies, China's wind power industry has ushered in opportunities for development. One of the most important benefits is the “Renewable Energy Law” promulgated by the state in 2006.

The law requires that grid companies should purchase renewable energy in full amount, and the on-grid electricity price for new energy generation is higher than traditional electricity. How much production can be sold will undoubtedly give wind power investors a strong confidence.

"At that time, the combination of electricity price and manufacturing cost was profitable. As long as the business model matures, it will naturally develop." Li Minghui, deputy general manager of Beijing Jingneng New Energy Co., Ltd., has witnessed this "Great Leap Forward."

"From 2005 to 2008, less than four years ago, the number of domestic wind turbine manufacturers reached more than 100, and many people bought back a drawing from abroad. The drawings have not yet understood the bid. Whoever has Fan, as long as you dare to sign a contract with me to build a fan plant." Li Minghui said. "Five years ago, there were basically no fans on both sides of the provincial highway in Inner Mongolia. Now you drive all the way and you see all the fans."

It can be said that China's wind power has gone through 15 years of development in developed countries in more than 5 years. According to the latest statistics issued by the China Electric Power Enterprise Association, the total installed capacity of wind power in China was 60.83 million kilowatts at the end of 2012, ranking first in the world; The amount of electricity generated was 100.4 billion kWh. The first super nuclear power became the third largest power source in China after the thermal power and hydropower.

Despite rapid development, the utilization efficiency of wind power is not high. According to data from the National Energy Administration, in 2012, the average number of hours spent on wind power equipment nationwide was 1,890 hours, a decrease of 30 hours compared to 2011, and individual provinces (districts) even dropped to about 1400 hours, resulting in great waste, but also intensified. Environmental conflicts.

The "disposal tide"

After five years of "Great Leap Forward," wind power development has encountered bottlenecks. "Discarding the wind was unexpected, but I didn't expect it to be so rapid." Li Minghui said.

The geographical distribution of wind resources in China is extremely mismatched with the power load. The traditional “Three North” regions (northwest, northeast, and north China) have abundant wind resources, but the power load is mainly concentrated in coastal and other economic regions. In recent years, wind power development, which is highly concentrated in the “Three Norths”, has begun to face more and more serious issues such as the limited capacity for on-site consumption, unbalanced power grid output capacity and power generation capacity, and the phenomenon of “disposal of wind” has begun to become prominent.

According to the "China Wind Power Development Report 2012" released in September last year, the nation's wind-discharging capacity exceeded 10 billion kilowatt-hours in 2011, and the proportion of abandoned winds exceeded 12%, equivalent to a loss of 3.3 million tons of standard coal. Wind power companies have lost more than 5 billion yuan due to wind curtailment, accounting for 50% of the wind power industry's profitability.

“Electricity cannot be stored. How much electricity the user uses has to generate electricity. The excess electricity is wasted if it is not transported.” Li Minghui explained to the reporter on an Inner Mongolian power grid map. “For example, the entire installed capacity of thermal power grid in Mengxi Power Grid 3300 Million kilowatts, of which 17.8 million kilowatts of heating units, accounting for 53% of thermal power installations, wind power installed capacity of 9.87 million kilowatts, the power supply structure is relatively single, coupled with slow growth of regional load, heating power grid peak capacity is seriously insufficient, but if you want to send The North China Power Grid currently has only two channels, and the capacity of these two channels is less than 4 million kilowatts, so wind power has been abandoned more.

Due to the large-scale establishment of wind turbines, the grid equipment failed to keep up with the grid, so some wind farms will be forced to limit the amount of power generated. Li Minghui told reporters that since the beginning of 2009, power restrictions have been reached, and it can be said that this year reached a peak in recent years. The actual proportion of wind-reduction may be higher than those reported, and only Jingneng’s annual power loss will be as high as in recent years. Several hundred million.

Restricted access to the grid is only one of the reasons for the “disappearance” phenomenon, and part of the resistance comes from the interest chain behind the traditional thermal power projects.

If there is more wind power online, thermal power must be squeezed. As a basic national policy, energy conservation and emission reduction are principles that are firmly adhered to. The “Renewable Energy Law” clearly stipulates that renewable energy power generation should be encouraged and supported instead of fossil energy. However, the actual situation is that wind power not only does not enjoy the rights of the full amount of guarantees granted by the "Renewable Energy Law", and even has to "peak" and "make way" for the planned power of thermal power plants.

China’s Renewable Energy Society’s Wind Energy Professional Committee Shi Pengfei suggested that China’s wind power should be integrated into the overall planning of the power system. Comprehensive plans for power supply, power grid, energy storage, and load allocation should be used to send thermal power, hydropower, and wind power to the outside of the country and use pumped storage. And natural gas as a peaking power supply, at the same time launch scheduling forecast of high power output.

Therefore, some experts suggested that a compensation adjustment mechanism be established to ensure the overall level of income. At the end of last year, the Northeast Telecommunication Regulatory Authority and the Inner Mongolia Economic and Information Commission jointly issued the Interim Measures for Wind Exchange Alternative Trading in the Mengdong Region, which allowed wind power companies to pay their own pockets and compensate them for the thermal power, thereby ending the “revenge”.

However, the wind power in the process of growth is certainly not as good as the thermal power generation due to its mode of operation and space for development. This will allow wind power that is not effective enough to pay for profitable firepower and completely ignore the pollution cost brought by fossil power generation. The wind power in China is somewhat unfair.

The development of wind power owes only to “East Wind”

The National Energy Bureau announced the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” target for the development of renewable energy in China, which stipulates that by 2015, the cumulative installed capacity of wind power across the country will reach 100 million kilowatts, and the annual power generation will reach 190 billion kilowatt-hours. At the beginning of the year, the State Grid Corporation of China issued the "Opinions on the Implementation of Distributed Power Grid-connected Services" and promised to incorporate distributed power sources including wind power into the national grid.

These will undoubtedly promote the solution to the bottleneck of wind power development. However, as an emerging industry, the wind power industry must maintain a certain rate of growth and market size, but also rely on more detailed and perfect support.

The “Measures for the Management of Renewable Energy Power Quotas (Discussion Draft)” issued last year was seen as a strong push for the development of renewable energy. The basic idea is: The state proposes a restrictive renewable energy power quota requirement for the three major entities: power generation companies, power grid companies, and local governments. That is, it is mandatory for power generation companies to assume the obligation of renewable energy generation, impose a mandatory power grid company to assume the obligation to purchase electricity, and force provincial and municipal governments to use renewable energy to generate electricity.

Take Beijing as an example. The draft stipulates that in 2015, Beijing actually consumes 11.3 billion kilowatts of renewable energy, while Beijing’s local renewable energy has only 2.9 billion kilowatts, which means that 8.4 billion kilowatts of renewable energy will be consumed. The quantity needs to be input across provinces.

As a matter of fact, Beijing does not have the conditions for large-scale development of wind power and solar energy.

“One is that there are no particularly suitable sites for building wind farms and solar power stations. Second, Beijing’s light resources and wind resources are not sufficient. If they are built up, the power generation is not high and the benefits are relatively low, so they can only consider the surrounding areas. Provincial and municipal secondments, which in turn will accelerate the follow-up of peripheral grid infrastructure." Li Minghui explained.

However, at present, it has been difficult to make progress in draft amendments that have been issued for more than one year. The main focus is on the distribution of indicators. There are disputes among provinces and power generation companies. Moreover, the implementation of the measures, especially the assessment of indicators, has also become the biggest difficulty in the revision. However, Li Minghui believes that the implementation of the draft is only a matter of time.

In any case, in the short term, the outcome of this game of interests and responsibilities will surely be that some people are happy and some people worry, but in the long run, everyone will benefit from renewable energy because we breathe the same air.

Looking ahead, Li Minghui frankly stated that wind power is already on track in China and there will be greater future development prospects in the future.