Energy Internet will become the main form of electricity in the future

China Energy Storage Network News : In September 2015, President Xi Jinping proposed to explore the construction of a global energy internet at the United Nations Development Summit to promote the use of clean and green methods to meet global electricity demand, which has brought the global community's attention to the concept of a global energy internet to a new level. At the same time, Liu Zhenya, then chairman and party secretary of the State Grid Corporation of China, released the "Global Energy Internet" in February of the same year, which made the future development concept of the global energy internet with "smart grid + UHV grid + clean energy" as the core take a big step forward.

Over the past year, the energy industry has developed rapidly around the world, with new energy maintaining a sustained growth momentum, with wind power and photovoltaics being particularly prominent. On May 15, a milestone in the history of human energy utilization was achieved: Germany achieved for the first time that almost all of its national electricity demand was supplied by renewable energy. In recent years, my country's new energy industries such as wind power and photovoltaics have developed rapidly, especially in the "Three Norths" of North China, Northwest China and Northeast China, which are rich in wind and solar resources. By the end of June 2016, the installed capacity of wind power in China reached 140 million kilowatts. In 2016, the National Energy Administration issued a national construction plan for new photovoltaic power stations of nearly 20 million kilowatts.

However, on the one hand, we firmly choose the future of clean energy utilization and fully promote the construction of new energy power sources, but on the other hand, the situation makes new energy investors worried. According to the data of the "Analysis and Forecast Report on the National Electricity Supply and Demand Situation in the First Three Quarters of 2016" of the China Electricity Council, the wind power generation of power plants with a capacity of 6,000 kilowatts and above in the country increased by 26.8%, and the equipment utilization hours were 1,251 hours, a year-on-year decrease of 66 hours; compared with the same period last year, the utilization hours of wind power equipment in Xinjiang, Ningxia and Gansu decreased by 388, 358 and 105 hours respectively, and the wind power abandonment in some provinces in the "Three Norths" region is still serious. The installed capacity of grid-connected solar power generation doubled, and the decline in the utilization hours of solar power generation equipment expanded: the grid-connected solar power generation of power plants with a capacity of 6,000 kilowatts and above in the country was 46 billion kilowatt-hours, a year-on-year increase of 63.4%; the utilization hours of grid-connected solar power generation equipment in the country was 889 hours, a year-on-year decrease of 107 hours, of which Ningxia, Xinjiang and Qinghai decreased by more than 100 hours, and the abandonment of light in some provinces in the northwest region was more prominent. Renewable energy sources that seriously exceed our absorption capacity are rushing to come online, and large-scale absorption of new energy has become a difficult problem for China and the world.

Smart grid provides a solid foundation for distributed energy and microgrids

In the central, eastern and southern regions of my country, where the total electricity consumption is relatively large, the national "13th Five-Year Plan" also proposes to accelerate the development of distributed wind power and distributed photovoltaic power generation in the central, eastern and southern regions. In recent years, in some eastern coastal provinces, distributed photovoltaics have developed rapidly and have played an absolute leading role in the photovoltaic installed capacity in provinces such as Shanghai and Guangdong. Some people even say that the construction of distributed power stations will "explode on a large scale" in 2017. Under the model of "government guidance, market operation, and unified management", not only the advantages of abundant roof resources of factory buildings in many industrial parks have been brought into play, but also the average industrial and commercial electricity price and the benchmark on-grid electricity price for coal-fired power desulfurization are both at a relatively high level in China.

Compared with traditional and centralized power generation, distributed power generation has the advantages of less environmental pollution, less investment, shorter construction period and higher flexibility. However, the grid connection of distributed photovoltaic power generation has increased the difficulty of load forecasting in the area where it is located and changed the original load growth pattern. The access of a large number of distributed power sources has made the transformation and management of the distribution network more complicated.

Han Feng, deputy director of the State Grid Beijing Economic and Technological Research Institute, believes that in the face of large-scale access to distributed power sources and diversified loads, distribution network planning and construction must adhere to unified planning and unified standards, promote modular design and standardized construction, and actively guide the coordinated and healthy development of distributed power sources, diversified loads and distribution networks.

Big data analysis, machine learning and prediction are important technical supports for the energy internet to realize the characteristics of a living organism. The energy internet integrates operation data, weather data, meteorological data, power grid data, power market data, etc., conducts big data analysis, load forecasting, power generation forecasting, and machine learning, opens up and optimizes the operational efficiency of energy production and energy consumption, and demand and supply can be dynamically adjusted at any time.

On the basis of smart grid, the flexibility and acceptance capacity of energy system will be continuously improved, the complementarity, substitution, coupling and coordination among various energy sources will be increasingly deepened, and the multi-energy complementarity of primary energy will be an important feature of my country's energy supply mode.

Ultra-high voltage grid is the key to improving energy efficiency of large-scale power supply

To vigorously develop new energy, it is necessary to combine large-scale centralized development with distributed development to improve utilization efficiency. my country's hydropower, wind power, and solar energy resources are mainly distributed in the northwest region, but they are difficult to effectively absorb due to factors such as small local load demand, weak grid, limited peak-shaving resources, and insufficient cross-regional transmission capacity. Relying on large power grids, we can make full use of the differences in load characteristics in different regions to maximize the comprehensive benefits of energy development. We should break through the constraints of limited local absorption capacity in clean energy-rich areas, accelerate the construction of transmission channels for large new energy bases, and absorb clean energy power generation across the country.

The transmission of large-scale new energy bases is mainly through the UHV power grid transmission channel. As the backbone grid (channel) of the global energy Internet, since the first AC UHV transmission line in my country was put into operation in 2009, the transmission capacity of UHV lines has been continuously broken through, and the ability to optimize resource allocation on a large scale has been greatly improved. According to data released by the State Grid Corporation of China, as of the beginning of 2016, the State Grid Corporation of China has completed the "three AC and four DC" UHV projects, and is building the "four AC and five DC" projects. The length of lines in operation, under construction and approved has reached 28,800 kilometers. With the advancement of UHV transmission technology and the gradual construction of UHV power grids, long-distance power transmission will have no regional and national differences, and the optimization and allocation of power resources on a larger scale around the world will become more convenient.

Electricity substitution improves energy terminal structure

Implementing electricity substitution in energy consumption, replacing fossil energy such as coal, oil, and natural gas with electricity, increasing the proportion of electricity in terminal consumption, and realizing electricity substitution as soon as possible is to actively improve the energy consumption structure from the demand side, thereby promoting the overall optimization of the energy efficiency of the power system.

In May 2016, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration and relevant departments jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on Promoting Electricity Substitution, pointing out that electricity has the advantages of being clean, safe and convenient, and that the implementation of electricity substitution is of great significance for promoting the energy consumption revolution, implementing the national energy strategy and promoting the development of clean energy. The key areas of electricity substitution include electric boilers, electric kilns and electric irrigation in the manufacturing field, electricity substitution for fuel oil in the transportation field, and heating for residents outside the coverage of the centralized pipeline network in the northern region.

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, my country will comprehensively promote the substitution of electric energy in the above-mentioned fields, achieve the substitution of scattered coal burning and fuel oil consumption in the energy terminal consumption link by about 130 million tons of standard coal, drive the proportion of electric coal in coal consumption to increase by about 1.9%, drive the proportion of electric energy in terminal energy consumption to increase by about 1.5%, and promote the proportion of electric energy consumption to reach about 27%. According to the report "China's Renewable Energy Development Roadmap 2050", by 2050, my country's terminal energy consumption will be 3.2 billion tons of standard coal, and electricity will account for more than 60% of the entire terminal energy consumption.