Proposal, suspension, and restart: the Fujian-Guangdong interconnection project

Text | eo reporter Jiang Li

Editor | Feng Jie

From the "Seventh Five-Year Plan" to the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan", the Fujian-Guangdong interconnection project finally received a new timetable in 2020.

According to the State Grid Corporation of China's 2020 UHV and key power grid project preliminary work plan, the Fujian-Guangdong interconnection project will be led by State Grid Fujian Power, and the establishment of a joint venture is planned to be completed in May 2020; it will be led by the State Grid Development Department, and coordinated by the East China Branch and State Grid Fujian Power, and was approved in August 2020.

Prior to this, the project had made substantial progress. On January 17, 2020, the official website of the Natural Resources Bureau of Meizhou City, Guangdong Province, made a pre-approval announcement of the site selection opinion for the 500 kV Fujian-Guangdong interconnection project (Guangdong section).

According to eo, at least since the Seventh Five-Year Plan, the idea of ​​promoting the interconnection of Fujian and Guangdong power grids has been discussed. In 2016, the Fujian-Guangdong power grid interconnection project was included in the National Power Development "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" and began to be gradually promoted. At the beginning of the final year of the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan", affected by the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, countries around the world have tried their best to alleviate the downward pressure on the economy, and the full promotion of power engineering has been given a significance beyond the industry to a certain extent.

State Grid divides the UHV and key power grid projects that need to be promoted this year into three categories: UHV projects, projects to improve the efficiency and benefits of UHV channels, and 330 kV and above power grid projects. The Fujian-Guangdong interconnection project belongs to the second category.

In the decades since the project was proposed and implemented, the structure of the power industry has undergone tremendous changes. The power supply and demand relationship in Fujian and Guangdong provinces has also been constantly developing. The project was shelved and restarted during this period, which strung together a miniature history of inter-provincial power assistance.

Alternative Plans for West-to-East Power Transmission

The Fujian-Guangdong interconnection is the second interconnection channel between the State Grid and the Southern Grid. At present, its positioning is not a power transmission and reception trunk line, but a complementary surplus, mutual backup and emergency support. The earliest proposal to connect the power grids of Fujian and Guangdong can be traced back to the time when the West-to-East Power Transmission Strategy was being conceived.

In 2000, the former State Planning Commission hosted a seminar on the development strategy of West-East Power Transmission and proposed to the State Council to speed up the construction of the West-East Power Transmission Project, which was approved by the State Council. In the same year, the first batch of West-East Power Transmission projects in Guizhou and Yunnan started construction, marking the full launch of my country's West-East Power Transmission Project.

There are three channels for transmitting electricity from west to east. The northern channel transmits electricity from the Shaanxi, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia energy triangle to the Beijing-Tianjin area, and currently includes power transmission from Xinjiang, the Hexi Corridor and Ningxia to North China, Central China and East China; the central channel transmits electricity from the Three Gorges to East China, and now also transmits hydropower from the Jinsha River and Sichuan and Chongqing to the East China power grid; the southern channel transmits electricity, mainly hydropower, from Yunnan and Guizhou to the Pearl River Delta.

Among them, solving the power shortage problem in the southern province of Guangdong is a major task of west-to-east power transmission.

Zhang Guobao, former director of the National Energy Administration, recalled that at the Central Office Meeting held in Beidaihe in early August 2000, one of the major topics brought by Comrade Li Changchun, then Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, was to request the central government to approve the construction of 10 million kilowatts of generating units in Guangdong Province during the "15th Five-Year Plan". Zhu Rongji, then Premier of the State Council, suggested building 10 million kilowatts of generating units in Guizhou and Yunnan, mainly hydropower, and then sending the electricity to Guangdong Province. This would kill two birds with one stone, not only meeting the growing electricity demand in Guangdong Province, but also finding a new economic growth point for the economically backward provinces in the southwest.

However, after delivering 10 million kilowatts of electricity to Guangdong, there is still a considerable gap. Therefore, it is crucial to deliver 3 million kilowatts of electricity from the Three Gorges to Guangdong. This is how the Sanguang ±500 kV DC transmission line from the Three Gorges to Guangdong was built. The first one was the Sanguang (Three Gorges-Guangdong, ±500 kV) DC transmission project, which was started in April 2002 and put into operation in June 2004.

Yao Zhenyan, former vice minister of the Ministry of Electric Power, once proposed to connect the power grids of Sichuan and Chongqing with Yunnan and Guizhou, which could not only solve the problem of power consumption in Ertan, but also increase power transmission to Guangdong. However, during the demonstration process, due to the many difficulties in building the transmission line from Sichuan to Yunnan and Guizhou, the plan was finally abandoned.

In addition, it is also envisaged to connect the Fujian power grid and the Guangdong power grid to send excess electricity in Fujian Province to Guangdong.

When reviewing the decision-making and implementation of the West-to-East Power Transmission Project, Zhang Guobao once expressed his opinion to the media that the division of the Fujian-Guangdong power grid was unreasonable and that the grid should be connected in line with the economic development speed of the two coastal provinces.

The Strategic Planning Department and Power Economy Research Center of the former State Power Corporation pointed out in the article "Analysis of the National Electricity Market in 2000" that the GDP growth in 2000 is expected to reach about 8.1% (the actual GDP growth rate is 8.49%). Among them, the Fujian power grid has a certain surplus, the Hainan power grid has a large surplus of installed power, and the Guangdong power grid has a tight supply and demand for power. According to the calculations at that time, the installed capacity growth rate in Fujian in the first four years of the "Ninth Five-Year Plan" was 10.4%, and the electricity consumption growth rate was 7.6%; Guangdong was 7.2% and 8.0% respectively. From the perspective of supply and demand alone, the two have a certain complementarity.

Li Rongmin from Fujian Electric Power Survey and Design Institute once published a paper mentioning that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, Guangdong Province's total electricity consumption will continue to maintain a high growth rate. Seizing the opportunity of power shortage in Guangdong during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, implementing the Guangdong interconnection project, expanding the power market outward, and participating in Guangdong's power market competition can solve Fujian's recent problem of relative surplus electricity.

Zhang Guobao once revealed, "Fujian Province was very enthusiastic about the interconnection of the Guangdong and Fujian power grids, but Guangdong Province was not very enthusiastic about the interconnection of the two provinces because it was still thinking about building power plants in its own province. It has not been implemented until today, which is a great pity."

The 12th Five-Year Plan is stranded

The idea of ​​connecting the two provincial grids was shelved for several years until the 12th Five-Year Plan period, when there seemed to be hope for a restart.

On June 10, 2009, Huang Longyun, then Executive Vice Governor of Guangdong Province, met with Ye Shuangyu, Vice Governor of Fujian Province, at the Liyuan Villa International Conference Center in Nanning, Guangxi in the evening. The two sides held talks on accelerating the preliminary work for the interconnection of Guangdong Power Grid and Fujian Power Grid.

According to media reports at the time, Lin Changcong, then Deputy Secretary-General of the Fujian Provincial Government, Lin Ying, then Deputy Secretary-General of the Guangdong Provincial Government, and responsible persons from the Development and Reform Commissions, Economic and Trade Commissions of Fujian and Guangdong Provinces, as well as the State Grid Corporation of China and the Fujian Electric Power Company attended the talks, and "both sides reached a broad consensus on accelerating the Fujian-Guangdong power grid interconnection project."

Before the meeting between the two provincial leaders, the State Grid Corporation of China listed the Fujian-Guangdong power grid interconnection project as a key preliminary project and requested the National Development and Reform Commission to take the lead in promoting the project. According to the news at that time, eight units including the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration, the two provincial governments, and the two major power grid companies were working together to promote the Fujian-Guangdong power grid project and strive to start construction in 2010.

According to eo, during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, with the promotion of Fujian, a preliminary plan for the Fujian-Guangdong interconnection project was developed.