“The so-called’shortage of electricity’ in the near future is actually an issue of straightening out electricity and coal prices. It is entirely a question of market scheduling and reasonable market management, not a question of production capacity or’lack of coal’.”
On November 16, the China News Agency and the Energy Foundation jointly organized the “Energy China—Accelerating the Construction of a New Low-Carbon Power System to Meet the Growing Power Demand” At the forum, Zhou Dadi, an academic consultant of the China Energy Research Society and former director of the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that prices should be straightened out. After the government stopped the “speculative surge” in the market through administrative intervention, it didn’t take long for thermal coal to return to a high level of coal storage. In the future, it is necessary to make reasonable structural adjustments to the electricity price system including energy storage electricity prices and energy consumption electricity prices. It does not mean that electricity prices will increase substantially, but that electricity price structures must have reasonable changes.
For adjusting the electricity price structure, Zhou Dadi believes that the reform of the electricity price system has a key role, but the core behind it lies in the low-carbon and zero-carbonization of electricity, which must overcome obstacles to liberate productivity. He pointed out that China has great potential for low-carbon transition, and that the peak of carbon requires zero-carbon electricity first. In the context of the “dual carbon” target, China’s power system is facing transformation. But in this process, overcoming the inertia brought about by its huge volume has become a major challenge.
Zhou Dadi said that in the past 30 years, China’s power system has maintained rapid growth. Technology, grid operation technology and reliability are among the best in the world. It can face a huge transformation. To transform from this large-scale centralized power system based on fossil fuels to a zero-carbon power system, many of the advantages of the past have also become a kind of resistance to some extent.
“On the positive side, China is now in an internationally advanced position in terms of nuclear power, hydropower, new energy power generation technology and installed capacity, and new energy consumption. Especially photovoltaic Renewable energy technologies such as, energy storage batteries are already at the forefront of the world, which can be said to be leading the development of new energy. At the same time, due to the rapid technological progress and large-scale manufacturing capabilities of photovoltaic, wind power and energy storage systems, China has a low-carbon transition Zhou Dadi believes that as the installed cost of photovoltaic, wind power, and energy storage systems has dropped significantly, and the conversion efficiency has increased significantly, they have become competitive in the market.
He cited, for example, that the cost of wind power generation in China has fallen sharply in the past ten years, of which wind power costs have fallen by about 30% to 40%, and solar power costs have fallen by 50% to 80%. , And there is still room for further decline. As an important energy storage technology, battery energy storage technologies such as lithium ionProgress is also very fast. The cost of lithium battery is more than 7,700 yuan per kilowatt-hour ten years ago, and now it has dropped to 680 yuan; the cost of energy storage per kilowatt-hour is also expected to drop from the current 0.66 yuan to about 0.2 yuan within 5 years, all of which have created a good foundation for low-carbon transformation condition.
“The peak of carbon requires electricity to be zero-carbon first.” Zhou Dadi said that the country’s installed power capacity is nearly 2.3 billion kilowatts, of which renewable energy power generation accounts for more than 40% . To be carbon neutral in the energy system in the future, a new power system with zero-carbon power as the core must be established. The power system must strive to achieve zero-carbonization between 2040 and 2045. Therefore, the next step must be to accelerate the development of non-fossil energy power.
Zhou Dadi said that the carbon neutrality of the energy system requires the establishment of a new power system with zero-carbon electricity as the core, which means that all energy supplies must be Energy power generation started. Only when this is achieved, the terminal energy can be highly electrified, so as to realize the zero-carbonization of terminal energy.
There is a view that a part of fossil energy should also be retained to enter the energy system through combustion or other means. In this regard, Zhou Dadi believes that with the non-fossil energy , The cost of photovoltaic power generation has dropped significantly, and fossil energy is more expensive whether it is power generation or end-use energy. At the same time, with regard to the view that wind power and photovoltaic power generation are completely based on electricity, Zhou Dadi said that for China, hydropower and nuclear power will still play a very important role and can participate in regulation and control, to a considerable extent, to improve the stability of power supply. .