Experts hotly discuss the road to energy transition: Renewable energy will play a major role in the future

The proposal of the "double carbon" goal declares the determination and ambition of my country's green and low-carbon transformation, and marks the rise of a new development paradigm. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly pointed out that we should actively and steadily promote carbon neutrality at the peak of carbon, based on our country's energy resource endowment, and insist on building first and then destroying it.

Recently, at the "Energy China" of the first China State Forum in 2023, experts and scholars participating in the meeting said that to realize energy transformation, we must do a good job of "preliminary establishment", and we should establish power supply, energy storage, and power grid. At the same time, do a good job of "returning", under the premise of ensuring energy security, fossil energy must gradually "reduce", plan in advance, and transform in an orderly manner.

Li Power: Renewable energy in the future "takes the big responsibility"

In the past, when it came to the characteristics of my country's energy resource endowment, many people generally believed that it was "rich in coal, short of oil, and low in gas".

According to Du Xiangwan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a consultant of the National Climate Change Expert Committee, the current abundant renewable energy is an important part of my country's energy resource endowment.

At present, my country's installed capacity of hydropower, wind power, photovoltaic power generation, and biomass power generation ranks first in the world. In 2022, the national renewable energy power generation installed capacity will exceed 1.2 billion kilowatts, accounting for 47% of the country's total power generation capacity. From the perspective of power generation, last year, my country's renewable energy power generation reached 2.7 trillion kWh, accounting for 31.6% of the electricity consumption of the whole society.

Du Xiangwan said that the demand for sustainable economic and social development and the realization of the "double carbon" goal are driving the rapid growth of renewable energy. At the same time, the decline in my country's natural resources, technological capabilities and costs is also supporting the rapid growth of renewable energy. From the beginning of this century, the status of renewable energy was still "insignificant", now it can be called "vital", and next it should "take on a big responsibility".

Du Xiangwan also said, "From the perspective of energy security, coal is the first contributor. However, according to the annual coal storage and production, the coal storage and production ratio is only 40 years. Therefore, gradually and steadily shift from coal-based to renewable energy. It is a strategy for long-term energy security and the only way to go to carbon neutrality."

According to Zou Ji, CEO of the Energy Foundation and President of China, the energy transformation must be "preliminary", which includes the power supply, that is, the power supply of non-fossil energy, especially wind and renewable energy.

The power supply represented by wind power and photovoltaic power generation has the characteristics of intermittent and fluctuating. For this reason, my country has proposed to build a new type of power system with a gradually increasing proportion of new energy. Du Xiangwan said, "The new power system must coordinate planning through multi-energy complementarity and source-grid-load storage, generation, transmission, distribution, and use. At the same time, it must mobilize various flexible resources and develop various commercial energy storage technologies. The power system dominated by wind power and photovoltaics is going to be safe and reliable."

Zhang Yiguo, member of the party committee and chief planner of the General Institute of Hydropower and Water Conservancy Planning and Design, also said that the gradual withdrawal of traditional energy must be based on the safe and reliable replacement of new energy. It requires both large-scale development and high-level consumption, as well as a safe and reliable supply of energy. At present, to realize the "stable and reliable" renewable energy, there are multiple challenges in terms of development space, grid connection and transmission, efficient consumption, safe operation and economy.

Zhang Yiguo suggested that the planning and construction of renewable energy should be moderately ahead of schedule with a margin. To ensure the realization of the proportion target of non-fossil energy consumption, it is necessary to moderately advance the layout of new energy sources. At the same time, the utilization rate of new energy sources such as scenery can be moderately released.

In addition, ensure the reasonable development of land space for renewable energy, and establish a guarantee system for coordinated planning of elements for renewable energy development.

Furthermore, comprehensively improve the resilience and resilience of the power system. Develop hydropower scientifically and rationally, and promote the transformation of hydropower from electricity-based to both electricity and capacity. Intensify efforts to promote the construction of pumped storage power stations, and comprehensively improve the system's ability to adjust. Give full play to the role of coal power as a bottom-line guarantee, and promote the transformation and upgrading of coal power and clean development. Accelerate the construction of a strong transmission and distribution network, and build a power interaction platform that adapts to the new supply and demand relationship. Accelerate the construction of a new energy system that is compatible with the development level of new energy.

Standalone energy storage: an important force for power system regulation

The construction of a new type of power system has increased the demand for flexible regulation resources, including new energy storage, a "good partner" of new energy.

Liu Yongdong, deputy secretary-general of the China Electricity Council, said that new energy storage plays a wide role in various scenarios on the power supply side, grid side, and user side. It is an important support for regulation ability, comprehensive efficiency and safety guarantee ability, and it is also an effective means to support user-side energy management and power quality.

"New energy storage plays a very important role as a flexible resource." Liu Yongdong believes that in the near future, the economic advantages of new energy storage are not obvious enough, and it is still necessary to coordinate the development of flexible adjustment resources such as pumped storage, flexible transformation of thermal power, and demand response. as a useful supplement. In the long run, with technological progress and cost reduction, new energy storage will become an important force for power system regulation.

In 2022, the commissioning and operation of electrochemical energy storage power stations in my country will increase rapidly, which will greatly promote the scale development of the upstream energy storage manufacturing industry and enhance the understanding of the significance of electrochemical energy storage to support the construction of new power systems in all sectors of society. But Liu Yongdong pointed out that electrochemical energy storage also faces deep-seated problems. For example, construction is more important than operation, the utilization rate of energy storage is low, and the business model is not perfect.

To this end, Liu Yongdong put forward suggestions around market mechanism, technology, safety and standards.

The first is a comprehensive overall configuration and operation mechanism. Learn from the pumped storage model to develop new energy storage, and gradually expand the proportion of independent energy storage/shared energy storage. Configure the scale and form of energy storage according to local conditions. Improve mechanisms for new energy storage to participate in the electric energy market and ancillary service markets. Introduce a new energy storage capacity electricity price mechanism.

The second is to accelerate the iteration of technological innovation and strengthen the foundation. Promote diversified technologies to adapt to different scenarios. Make breakthroughs in whole-process safety technologies, such as breakthroughs in battery body safety, electrochemical energy storage system safety warnings, and other technologies. Innovate intelligent control technology to realize the unified scheduling of power generation, power grid and energy storage in forecasting.

The third is to strengthen the safety management of the whole process. Including improving the safety supervision mechanism of energy storage power stations, standardizing the quality management of the whole process of energy storage power stations, accelerating the improvement of energy storage safety technical standards, and improving the management system and standards of energy storage power stations for fire protection. In addition, it also includes the security of the lithium resource supply chain.

The fourth is to improve the standard system of the whole industry chain, involving planning and design, construction and acceptance, grid connection and operation and maintenance of power stations.

Li Grid: the platform that supports "electricity comes from afar and from the side"

In addition to "new energy" and "energy storage", the power grid as a hub and platform plays an important role in the new power system. There is no doubt that whether it is "electricity coming from afar or electricity coming from the side", it must rely on the power grid.

Zhou Yuanbing, director of the Economic and Technology Research Institute of the Global Energy Internet Development Cooperation Organization, believes that with the rapid increase in the proportion of new energy, there is an urgent need to improve the allocation capacity and comprehensive adjustment capacity. Specifically, it is necessary to speed up the construction of large-scale and efficient configuration of large power grids, the construction of flexible, flexible and intelligent active distribution networks, and the promotion of coordinated development of source, grid, load and storage, in order to achieve the goal of improving the elasticity, flexibility, and resilience of the entire power system.

Regarding the construction of large-scale and efficient power grids, Zhou Yuanbing said that the first step is to scientifically plan and layout inter-provincial and inter-regional transmission channels, and take into account the demand growth trend in North China, Central China, East China, and South China and the development of large-scale clean energy bases in Northwest and Southwest China. Sequence, scientifically plan the layout of new power flows, and give priority to the arrangement of power transmission projects outside multi-energy complementary bases with mature technology and excellent economy. Secondly, continue to optimize the backbone network structure of the regional power grid, including UHV projects in Central China, North China, and Sichuan-Chongqing regions, to improve power supply guarantee capabilities. In addition, the main grid structure of provincial-level power grids at all levels has been continuously improved, mainly to meet the requirements of strong local power grids and grid-connected new energy for grid development.

Distribution network construction is also very important. Zhou Yuanbing said, "The development of new energy is concentrated and distributed simultaneously, and sea and land are developed side by side, especially the rapid development of photovoltaics. At present, distributed development has accounted for half of the overall development, and the future development potential is also great. Therefore, this will affect the carrying capacity of the distribution network. The peak shaving ability and operation control ability have put forward very high requirements."

Zhou Yuanbing said that the distribution network will also undertake the large-scale development of new loads, especially the rapid popularization of technologies such as electric heating, electric vehicles, electric hydrogen production and synthetic fuels, and fossil energy in the field of end-use energy is constantly being replaced by electricity or electricity derivatives , the operation of the power system must change from "source follows load" to "source-grid-load-storage interaction".

Talking about promoting the coordinated development of source, network, load and storage, Zhou Yuanbing believes that coordinated planning and coordinated operation are very important. At the level of collaborative planning, it is necessary to give full play to the platform role of interconnection, transmission and distribution coordination, and digital smart grid. Guided by planning, all aspects of power supply, load, and energy storage should be fully exerted and organically integrated.

How to "break": traditional energy should be "reduced" in an orderly manner

Of course, the "establishment" of new energy, energy storage and power grids does not mean that traditional fossil energy will be completely withdrawn.

At present, my country's energy resource endowment is dominated by coal, and coal is still the "ballast stone" to ensure energy security. This also determines that coal power will play an important role in national power security for a long period of time.

Du Xiangwan said that now and in the future, fossil energy is still very important. Fossil energy and non-fossil energy should coordinate and complement each other, establish first and then destroy, and build a resilient energy system.

"Don't demolish the old house if the new house is not built well. This is a very simple truth. The understanding of "broken" is to ensure energy security at the current stage and orderly transformation. Fossil energy must be gradually "reduced", not necessarily withdrawn .” Du Xiangwan said.

According to the participating experts, the transformation of traditional fossil energy represented by coal power is an arduous task, with prominent short-term industry contradictions and little long-term survival space; advance planning is required to promote the orderly transformation of the industry.

Fu Sha, director of strategic planning at the Energy Foundation, proposed three major measures for coal power transformation: first, strictly control new coal power projects in the short term, and realize incremental control through unit combination acceptance, mining demand-side response resources, and other flexible power configurations. Reduce transition risk. Second, design a top-level plan for coal-fired power transformation, and promote the process of orderly transformation in the next 30 years by refining standards and building a market mechanism. Third, coal power companies should actively seek transformation, enhance competitiveness and reduce transformation risks to a greater extent through coordinated development with renewable energy, transformation of heat supply and consumption reduction, and development of emission reduction technologies.

Fu Sha also emphasized that the transformation of coal power requires a clear top-level plan, planning and promoting the transformation process under the main principles of ensuring power safety, not breaking the red line, ensuring people's livelihood, and unit operation economy.

Regarding the roadmap for coal power transformation, Fu Sha said, “The consumption of electricity and coal is expected to enter an inflection point of decline after 2030. In addition to the newly added power demand will be met by renewable energy power, renewable energy power will also substantially replace existing coal power. Coal consumption falls to about 300 million tonnes by 2060."