context: Intermittent solar and wind resources continue to be installed at a rapid space. Xi Jinping 习近平 called last year to speed up the transtion to a new power system dominated by renewable energy.
With the significant rise in new energy sources, the energy system’s green and low-carbon attributes are quickly emerging, necessitating more focus on safety, reliability and economic viability, says Du Xiangwan 杜祥琬 National Energy Commission Expert Advisory Committee deputy director.
Developing power sources for new energy systems requires a strategy of multi-energy complementarity.
- coal-fired power units to be managed flexibly to participate in peak load management
- nuclear power should to play a more significant role in stabilising the base load, aiming to exceed 100 GW (currenlty 56 GW) by 2030
- advancing commercial energy storage and heat storage technologies to enhance the energy system’s flexibility, inclusiveness, and balancing capabilities
- smart grids and distributed networks to ensure the grid is observable, measurable and controllable
As the proportion of new energy increases, the costs associated with system balancing and safety guarantees will become additional expenses for the power system. To address this, Du suggests
- extensively utilising flexible resources across various fields to tackle the balancing issue economically
- developing distributed power sources that allows the transformation of the large power grid model into a combination of a main grid and a series of interconnected microgrids
- employing high-precision prediction technology to improve local self-balancing
He also emphasises that in the course of energy transformation, it is crucial to gradually increase the energy self-sufficiency rate in the central and eastern regions. This involves maximising the abundant renewable energy available locally and implementing a strategy that combines ‘utilising nearby resources’ with ‘supplementing from afar'.
Initially, local renewable energy should be used to enhance self-sufficiency, followed by reliance on west-to-east power transmission to cover any shortfalls. The robust development of distributed photovoltaic power generation, onshore wind power and offshore wind power has laid a strong foundation, marking a significant improvement from the situation ten years ago, he notes.