January 1, 2012

China’s 12th Five-Year Plan Pushes Power Industry in New Directions

By Zeng Ming, Xue Song, Zhu Xiaoli, and Ma Mingjuan, North China Electric Power University

Goal 5: Construct a Strong and Smart Grid

The diverse locations of fuel supplies, plants, and population/electrical demand requires China to make full use of basic functions of the grid such as long distance, high capacity, and high energy efficiency. During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, it is important to accelerate the construction of inter-provincial transmission systems and promote the development of large bases for coal, hydropower, nuclear power, and other new energy resources. China can optimize the allocation of these energy resources by the approach of “common transmission channel, joint development and network to network delivery.”

A cross-regional, long-distance, and high-capacity transmission channel connecting China’s northwestern coal base and eastern load center regions will be built after the layout optimization of coal-fired power so as to achieve joint transport of coal and wind power. Studies showed that the development scale of wind power in Xin Jiang, Gan Su, Meng Xi, Meng Dong, and Ji Lin will be approximately 80 GW, 75% of which needs to be sent inter-provincially. Abundant solar energy resources in northwestern areas will be developed greatly by 2020, and this inter-provincial transmission infrastructure will allow China to expand the development scale of wind and solar power because it can be transmitted along with coal power, thereby avoiding economic problems because of isolated development and delivery.

Northwestern coal bases and southwestern hydropower bases have large potential to export power. According to the analysis of grid transmission ability, coal-fired power flow will increase 100% from 2015 to 2020. Southwestern hydropower will be the focus in the future, given the distribution and development of water resources. The outgoing capacity of hydropower from the Jin Sha River is 13.9 GW and 30.9 GW in 2015 and 2020, respectively, while from Si Chuan it is 17.2 GW and 22.2 GW. The massive pattern of “west to east” and “north to south” will be formed by then, and the ability of UHV and cross-transmission will be increased dramatically.

Power development should not only follow its own law of development but also continue to innovate and progress. On the supply side, the power system must not only constantly adapt to technological advances and large-scale development with clean and efficient development of traditional fossil fuel power generation but also meet the new development requirements for hydropower, wind power, solar power, and other renewable energy.

On the demand side, it is necessary to adapt technologies to meet the electricity needs of industrialization, urbanization, modernization, and information while meeting green development, energy saving, and low-carbon requirements. On the grid side, it is essential to provide safe, economical, clean, and efficient power products for a modern society. Based on an intelligent, modern, efficient information platform and service network, a smart grid can collect and respond to a diversified supply side and demand side, and satisfy the electricity needs of all.

Smart grids are developing actively abroad. They can provide a dynamic platform for a variety of distributed energy resources to connect flexibly and provide an intelligent control and management platform to improve energy efficiency and achieve demand side response. In addition, a smart grid can provide an innovative application platform for electric vehicles and thereby help resolve issues such as power supply security and sustainable development. Combining the characteristics of China’s energy resource with the sustainable development of its economy and society, State Grid Corp. proposed strategic objectives for a strong and smart grid.

A strong and smart grid requires an information and communication platform with the means of intelligent control. Incorporating generation, transmission, substations, and power distribution, a smart grid can allocate AC and DC rationally and cover all voltage levels to adapt to the development of inter-provincial transmission. Above all, smart grid is a modern grid that is strong and reliable, economically effective, and environmentally friendly. The UHV power grid plan by 2015 for China is shown in Figure 8. In contrast with smart grid developments abroad that stress demand side management, power transmission is also important for China.

8. UHV power grid plan by 2015. Source: State Council, The 12th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development

During the period of the 12th Five-Year Plan, the power industry should focus construction on the transmission grid backbone, which connects major energy-producing regions to main load centers. Besides, the optimal allocation of energy resources should be achieved to adapt to the construction of an electricity market platform while reducing the proportion of fossil energy consumption.

In addition, it is needed to strengthen the distribution network construction to improve power supply reliability and meet the needs of distributed energy development. It is estimated that a strong and smart grid, which is centered on an UHV synchronous network and with the characteristic of high security and reliability, will be built by 2020. It can also achieve large-scale energy resource allocation optimization with high efficiency (Figure 9).

9. Modern transmission projects. China, which in 2008 had already completed one 1,000-kV UHV AC circuit, in July put into operation the 2,000-kilometer, 800-kV Xiangjiaba-Shanghai link. Two other 800-kV DC circuits recently completed construction. The Longquan high-voltage DC converter station shown here is similar to those used at China’s massive hydropower transmission projects. Courtesy: ABB

As a new strategy for economic growth and emerging industries, a smart grid will bring great business opportunities for the power industry itself, for related upstream and downstream industries, and for the high-tech equipment manufacturing industry. However, opportunities and challenges exist side by side. In future developments, China should emphasis innovation on critical power system equipment and master key technologies, key components, and raw materials production with intellectual property rights through independent innovation. Otherwise, the future implementation of a smart grid will result in higher risk and poor economic effectiveness. Therefore, the independent innovation of the power industry will play a very important role in the future development of the energy industry in China.

The work described in this paper was supported by The Energy Foundation (G-1006-12630).