Promoting the iterative upgrading of the power system with a holistic mindset: the power industry welcomes a new period of strategic opportunities
The National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration recently released the "15th Five-Year Plan for the Construction of a New Power System" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), which clarifies the principles, main objectives, key tasks, and major projects for the construction of a new power system during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, providing a clear "roadmap" and "construction blueprint" for the development of a new power system in the next five years.In the view of industry insiders, the "Plan" serves as a link between the past and the future: the "14th Five-Year Plan" mainly focuses on the scale expansion of new energy and the basic construction of power grids, while the "15th Five-Year Plan" shifts from "quantitative change" to "qualitative change", changing the previous planning model where power sources, power grids, and loads worked independently. It emphasizes the integrated and coordinated development of "source, grid, load, and storage", reflecting a systematic and holistic perspective.Adhere to the principle of prioritizing electric power and system constructionLiu Jizhen, a CAE Member, stated that according to the calculation based on the development goals of various power sources proposed in the "Plan", during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, China's newly added clean energy power generation is expected to be around 2.5 trillion kWh in the next five years, meeting about 80% of the total new electricity demand of the whole society. By reasonably controlling the pace of construction and commissioning of various power sources, by the end of the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the conditions will be met for the newly added electricity to be basically covered by the newly added clean energy power, which will strongly support the smooth achievement of the goal of carbon peak in the whole society.Tang Guangfu, CAE Member and Director of Huairou Laboratory, stated that the power supply side is accelerating its transformation towards a direction where new energy becomes the main increment and replaces existing energy. The grid side is evolving from an AC synchronous rigid large grid to a flexible grid featuring coordinated primary, distribution, and microgrids, with a high degree of power electronics integration. The national grid pattern, based on regional grids and featuring asynchronous interconnection of regional grids, will accelerate its formation. The load side is transitioning from passive electricity consumption to active and flexible interaction. It is expected that by 2030, the scale of "West-East Electricity Transmission" will exceed 420 million kilowatts, and the distribution network will support the access of 900 million kilowatts of distributed new energy.It is expected that by the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the peak shaving capacity on the demand side will reach more than 5% of the maximum load. Tang Guangfu believes that new business models such as vehicle-grid interaction, virtual power plants, and computing-electricity coordination will develop on a large scale, and the power balance will shift from "sources following loads" to multi-time scale coordinated optimization of "sources, grids, loads, and storage". In the future, there is an urgent need to develop load aggregation and regulation technology, relying on virtual power plants to aggregate dispersed resources such as charging piles, energy storage, and industrial loads; deepen the coordinated scheduling of computing power and electricity, promote the interaction of new loads such as data centers in the system, and reshape load management methods with digital empowerment.
Reinventing the power supply structure and spatiotemporal patternYang Kun stated that China has essentially established a clean power supply system featuring diversified development of coal, gas, nuclear, and renewable energy. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the dominant position of non-fossil energy power generation capacity will be further consolidated, providing strong support for economic and social development as well as green and low-carbon transformation.According to the "Plan", by 2030, conventional hydropower installed capacity will reach approximately 410 million kilowatts; nuclear power installed capacity will be around 110 million kilowatts; high-level consumption of new energy exceeding 2.8 billion kilowatts will be achieved; installed capacity for biomass, solar thermal, geothermal, and ocean energy power generation will reach approximately 65 million kilowatts; and installed capacity for pumped storage power stations will be around 160 million kilowatts.
The "Plan" mentions the high-level consumption of over 2.8 billion kilowatts of new energy, indicating that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, China's annual average newly installed grid-connected new energy capacity will still exceed 200 million kilowatts, and the pressure on new energy consumption will continue to increase. Liu Jizhen believes that while developing new energy on a large scale, it is also crucial to address the issue of "time-space mismatch" of new energy and maintain a reasonable level of new energy consumption. These are important challenges facing China's power development during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period.
In terms of specific implementation paths, Liu Jizhen proposed "classification promotion" and "regional control". Promoting the development and consumption of new energy in multiple scenarios through classification is a key measure that adapts to China's resource endowment and load distribution characteristics. The "Plan" innovatively proposes to determine the guidance targets for new energy utilization rates by region and level, dividing the country into three regions with utilization rates of not less than 95%, not less than 90%, and not less than 85%. This measure can fully take into account the differences between different regions, maintaining the basic bottom line of efficient utilization of new energy while also reserving reasonable development space for resource-rich areas, and guiding the dynamic adaptation of development layout and consumption capacity.
In the view of industry experts, the forms of non-electricity consumption and utilization of new energy will continue to expand. Tang Guangfu believes that non-electricity utilization such as hydrogen production from green electricity has become an important support for the consumption of new energy. It is expected that by 2030, the scale of hydrogen production from renewable energy will reach 2 million tons, and hydrogen-based fuels such as green hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol will be widely used in power generation, transportation, chemical industry, metallurgy, and other fields, accelerating the development scale of the hydrogen energy industry. It is necessary to break through key technologies in the entire hydrogen energy "production-storage-transportation-utilization" chain, such as flexible and efficient electrolytic hydrogen production, pipeline hydrogen transportation, low-cost hydrogen storage, and hydrogen-ammonia-methanol synthesis, and gradually build a new energy consumption system complementary and synergistic with the new power system.
Build a new power grid architecture featuring main grid, distribution grid, and microgrid coordinationIn the view of industry insiders, the new power system represents not only an upgrade of the power grid, but also a systematic reshaping of technology, business models, and mechanisms.Although China has established a super-large power grid with the strongest transmission capacity and the longest safe operation record in the world, further optimization of the nationwide power flow layout is still needed under the requirements of the construction of a new power system. To this end, the "Plan" proposes to focus on building a new power grid featuring coordinated main grid, distribution grid, and microgrid during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. By 2030, a safe, reliable, green, low-carbon, strong, resilient, intelligent, and flexible new power grid will be initially established, achieving high-level consumption of over 2.8 billion kilowatts of new energy and supporting the travel of over 110 million electric vehicles.
