A few days ago, China Southern Power Grid released an action plan for building a new power system, showing that by 2030, new energy will become the largest power source in the five southern provinces.

The salient feature of the new power system is that new energy sources such as wind power and photovoltaics occupy a dominant position in the power structure. The service power supply area of China Southern Power Grid mainly includes Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Hainan, Hong Kong and Macau.

The "White Paper" shows that China Southern Power Grid’s non-fossil energy installed capacity and electricity accounted for more than 50% for five consecutive years, the utilization rate of water energy exceeded 99.5%, and the utilization rate of wind power and photovoltaic power generation reached 99.7%. As of the end of 2020, the cumulative installed capacity of new energy in the five southern provinces and regions was 50 million kilowatts, with non-fossil energy accounting for 56% of installed capacity and 53% for power generation. The "White Paper" proposes that by 2025, China Southern Power Grid will promote 100 million kilowatts of new energy in the five southern provinces and regions, reaching a total of 150 million kilowatts. Among them, onshore wind power is over 24 million kilowatts, offshore wind power is over 20 million kilowatts, and photovoltaic power generation is over 56 million kilowatts.

By 2030, the new energy in the five southern provinces will be promoted to add another 100 million kilowatts of installed capacity, reaching a total of 250 million kilowatts. This installed capacity has increased nearly four times from the end of 2020. The "White Paper" proposes that by 2025, China Southern Power Grid will have the basic characteristics of a new power system of "green, high efficiency, flexible and open, and digital empowerment", supporting more than 60% of non-fossil energy in the five southern provinces. By 2030, China Southern Power Grid will basically build a new power system, supporting more than 65% of non-fossil energy sources.

However, new energy has the characteristics of randomness, volatility, and intermittent. Large-scale new energy access requires the system to have strong and flexible adjustment capabilities to ensure that the large-scale new energy is connected to the grid to achieve a balance between generation and use.

China Southern Power Grid decides to increase the layout of energy storage

The "White Paper" proposes that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" and "15th Five-Year Plan" period, China Southern Power Grid will put into operation 5 million kilowatts and 15 million kilowatts of pumped storage respectively, and 20 million kilowatts of new energy storage respectively. On April 21, the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development of New Energy Storage (Draft for Comment)" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Energy Administration showed that by the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the installed capacity of new energy storage nationwide was more than 30 million kilowatts. Based on this calculation, China Southern Power Grid (the five southern provinces and regions) planned for 20 million kilowatts of energy storage installed capacity during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, accounting for about 66.67% of the national installed capacity plan.

The "White Paper" stated that China Southern Power Grid is formulating a trading mechanism to adapt to the participation of emerging market entities such as pumped storage, new energy storage, and virtual power plants. China Southern Power Grid stated that it will vigorously promote the flexible transformation of thermal power, promote the expansion of hydropower stations with regulation capabilities, rationally deploy peak-shaving gas and power, and improve system regulation capabilities. Take the flexible transformation of a coal power unit as an example. Through the transformation, the unit can generate power at full load or only generate 20%-40% of the electricity, making power generation more flexible. In order to incorporate more new energy, China Southern Power Grid will also speed up the construction of supporting projects for new energy access to the power grid.

Liu Yingshang, deputy chief engineer of China Southern Power Grid and general manager of China Southern Power Grid, said that China Southern Power Grid will support centralized new energy bases and distributed new energy access to achieve "combination" of new energy. In addition, China Southern Power Grid will focus on promoting the construction of supporting projects such as offshore wind power in Guangdong and Guangxi, new energy in the central Yunnan area, and new energy in the west of Guizhou and northwestern Guizhou. Promote the construction of multi-energy complementary power systems such as hydropower, nuclear power, and peak-shaving gas power, and actively introduce out-of-region power sources such as Tibet and northern clean energy bases.

The "White Paper" proposes that China Southern Power Grid will design flexible and diverse market-oriented demand response trading models to promote the construction of demand-side response markets in the five southern provinces. Demand side response, that is, when the power supply is in short supply, electricity customers such as industry take the initiative to reduce their own electricity load. In this way, the peak electricity price during peak hours can be avoided and revenue can be obtained. China Southern Power Grid said that it will encourage various power market entities to tap peak shaving and valley filling resources, and guide non-productive air-conditioning loads, industrial loads, charging facilities, user-side energy storage and other flexible loads to actively participate in demand response.

At present, Guangdong's market-oriented demand response has the conditions for implementation and will be launched at the appropriate time. By 2030, China Southern Power Grid will reduce the peak load of the entire network by more than 5%. In order to achieve the "dual carbon" goal, China Southern Power Grid will accelerate the process of "new electrification" in industries, transportation, construction, agriculture and rural areas. The "White Paper" shows that by 2030, the proportion of electric energy in the final energy consumption of the five southern provinces will increase from 32% in 2020 to over 38%.

On March 1, the official website of State Grid Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as State Grid), another major power grid company in China, released a carbon peak carbon neutral action plan, stating that it will increase clean energy acceptance and increase the intensity of cross-regional clean energy transmission. Improve the utilization efficiency of the established transmission channels.

On March 19, the State Grid announced that it has studied and introduced six important measures to serve carbon peaks, carbon neutrality, and construction of a new power system to accelerate the development and construction of pumped storage. The load center has newly started construction of pumped storage power stations with installed capacity of more than 20 million kilowatts and an investment of more than 100 billion yuan. But as of now, the State Grid has not announced the time for the completion of the new power system.

China Southern Power Grid was established in December 2002 and mainly serves the five southern provinces and regions, Hong Kong and Macau, with a power supply area of 1 million square kilometers and a population of 254 million people. By the end of 2020, the total installed capacity of China Southern Power Grid was 350 million kilowatts, and the total length of transmission lines was 248,000 kilometers. Editor/Xu Shengpeng