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Author: Source: the Internet Published time: April 3, 2014
Against a backdrop of China being shrouded in smog in many places, energy restructuring, and the increasing shortage of non-coal power, State Grid recently announced its 2014 key projects in internal publication State Grid: It will try to get approval for and kick off “six AC and four DC” UHV projects. UHV development, originally in a low profile, has been accelerated and is “high-profile” currently. Meanwhile, as pointed out by energy experts, problems such as electric power safety and stability should be taken into account before a UHV project is started. Therefore, discussions about the justification of UHV projects have resumed.
As our reporters learned from the electric power authority of the province, four new projects bringing external electric power to Shandong are being planned to increase power supplies; three of them are expected to commence within the year.
To meet the requirements of Shandong in its efforts of economic development and environment protection, State Grid has planned “Two AC and Two DC” UHV projects, which will soon be implemented. The two AC projects are: Xilingol League – Jinan – Zaozhuang; Jingbian (Yuhuang) – Jinnan – Weifang. The two DC projects: Hulunbuir League – Shandong; Shanghaimiao – Lunan. The permit for the Xilingol League – Jinan – Zaozhuang route has been granted and thus met the requirements for approval for work commencement; feasibility studies have been completed on the Jingbian (Yuuhuang) – Jinnan – Weifang and Hulunbuir League – Shandong routes.
According to the person in charge, they will try to obtain approval for and kick off the “Two AC and One DC” projects within the year, given the progress of the preliminary work and the overall arrangement. Upon completion of the “Two AC and Two DC” UHV projects in Shandong, the capability of “External Power to Shandong” will be more than 32 million kW, thus solving the issue of power demand and supply and alleviating the pressure of energy efficiency.
This year, the power authority in Shandong has mentioned in its commitment to “ten concrete achievements” that the input of external power to Shandong will be guaranteed; it will implement the “External Power into Shandong” strategy and try to bring 7.5 million kW of stable power to Shandong and receive external power of 49 billion kWh (accounting for 12% of the whole year’s power supply) to cut carbon dioxide emissions of 40 million tons from thermal power generation and sulfur dioxides of 49,000 tons. It will step up its efforts to promote the “External Power to Shandong” development project in a bid to meet the needs of the whole province for its rapid socioeconomic development.
Why are these UHV projects, which have proceeded in a low profile, making a comeback? The answer lies in the environment factor, which should be considered first, according to industry insiders. The frequent smog weather conditions have forced China to reshuffle its energy structure. Some NPC delegates have called for “electricity for coal” and “electricity” for petroleum – the replacement of coal with electricity will reduce the damage to the environment by coal. With the UHV bases mainly located in southwestern and northwestern China, the “Electric Power from West to East” initiative has alleviated the smog weather in China to some extent.
According to Mou Hong, development and planning chief of State Grid Shandong, electric power is cleaner, more convenient, and safer than such energy as coal, petroleum, and natural gas. Statistically, if the percentage of electric power over energy end-consumption increases by 1%, the energy consumption per GDP unit will go down by about 4%. The increase of electric power in the energy end-consumption market will be good news to the relief of smog weather. Last year, the “external power” flowing to Shandong amounted to 50.2 billion kWh, taking up one ninth of the gross power consumption in the whole province. Every day, it would absorb 130 million kWh of “external power”, equivalent to the power generated from 80 40-ton carriages of standard coal shipped by train.
The motions by the NPC delegates this year have particularly emphasized the “External Power to Shandong” requirements. According to them, the quality of the environmental air in Shandong in 2015 is to improve by 20% over 2010 according to the requirements in “Action Plan for Air Pollution Prevention and Control”; carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions are to be cut by 14.9% and 16.1% respectively. In other words, coal consumption in Shandong in the five years to come will be slashed by 20 million tons – a formidable challenge in energy efficiency.
According to the analysis of a person in charge at the Economy and Information Technology Commission of Shandong Province, “Before us we have only two options: One is to eliminate outdated capacity in energy end-consumption and the other is to reduce coal consumption in energy production. As is evident in the results of the ‘External Power to Shandong’ initiative over the past three years, reduction of coal consumption is a better choice as it calls for less investment.” Power transmitted from West to East via UHV happens to make up for the shortage of energy resulting from the reduction of coal consumption.
While UHV is developing feverishly, some experts are still doubting the justification of UHV. According to Lin Boqiang, director of Xiamen University Energy Research Center, UHV development should proceed in an orderly fashion. He said that UHV is adopted in very few countries and the state itself is very cautious about this technology.
Besides, some anonymous industry insiders observed that UHV development should depend on the actual situations of various areas and that, as many other effective methods are available to control smog and solve the shortage of electric power, UHV should be the last resort. Japan and the former Soviet Union, which had adopted UHV before, abandoned it finally. Given the reality that UHV is researched while UHV projects are being carried out, we are faced with many uncertainties technologically.
An energy researcher at Anbound said that, though UHV is more cost-efficient than power generation with shipped coal after the environmental costs have been calculated, the intensive promotion of UHV will be massively expensive; at a time when the leverage ratio at State Grid is near 60% and local governments are deep in debt, we have to look at the national treasury for a source of funds. In addition, power grid enterprises are likely to obtain monopoly when all this is completed. He thus suggested that the regulator should take into account the attribute of State Grid as a public entity, figure out an appropriate approach to reform, and sort out the relationship between grid and factory in a timely manner.
Recent years have witnessed electric power instability in other countries cause losses, which has raised a red flag for us in China. According to Han Xiaoping, an economic analyst, two major power outages occurred in a row on July 30 and 31 on the northern power grid in India, affecting 0.67 billion people at the worst moment. As we can learn from the ten-plus power outages affecting massive areas in Europe and North America over the past decades, the higher the voltage level of AC and the more extensive the coverage, the greater the safety risk. In the case of a closely interconnected UHV AC grid, the damage of a local area or even a component will be rapidly spilled over to a much greater scope.
