Digital power grid becomes an effective support for green and low-carbon transformation of energy

China Energy Storage Network News: Author Pan Helin is the co-director and researcher of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center of Zhejiang University International Business School

On April 25, the 18th China Southern Power Grid International Technology Forum was successfully held. With the theme of "New Power System and Digital Grid Construction", the forum focused on exploring long-term mechanisms for scientific and technological innovation cooperation among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, promoting the integration of the energy industry value chain, and supporting the formation of an energy ecosystem, in order to jointly solve the key common problems in the development of new power systems under the background of carbon peak and carbon neutrality.

The 14th Five-Year Plan is a new stage for high-quality development of China's energy

From a global perspective, major countries in the world regard energy technology as an important breakthrough in the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial revolution, and green and low-carbon energy technology innovation has become the main direction of progress. In this context, the transformation of the power grid brought about by digitalization should also follow this revolutionary wave and embrace digital technology to seize the strategic commanding heights of future development.

The 14th Five-Year Plan period is a new stage for China's high-quality energy development. It is urgent to accelerate the process of upgrading the energy industry foundation and modernizing the industrial chain, explore the energy industry, the government, and upstream and downstream enterprises to jointly build the national industrial Internet, and support the modernization of the national industrial system. This objectively requires traditional energy industries such as electricity to transform production materials, knowledge and information into digital production factors. Therefore, the digital grid has become a new concept, new approach and new idea for the development of power grid construction driven by technological evolution and low-carbon demand upgrades. From a technical point of view, the digital grid is a power grid ecosystem composed of physical power grids, twin power grids and supporting technologies. It adopts technical means such as "micro-sensing + edge computing + data fusion" to realize the digital transformation of traditional power grids in "all factors, all businesses, and all processes", which can significantly enhance the "observable, measurable and controllable" capabilities of the power system. The digital grid effectively integrates a series of processes such as production, management, and operation and realizes digital and intelligent management, which also provides possibilities for the efficient absorption of new energy and the optimal use of power resources.

Digital power grid is the fundamental link in the construction of "Digital China"

First, from the perspective of national strategy, full data collection and processing are the basic conditions for ensuring the grid connection and consumption of large-scale new energy. Digital power grid is not only a basic link in the construction of "Digital China", but also the basis for the large-scale development and utilization of new energy. The construction of digital power grid will form a converged infrastructure with large-scale digital service capabilities based on the power system, which can effectively support the wider range of resource allocation capabilities, flexible adjustment capabilities, security management and protection capabilities and rapid response capabilities required for the construction of Digital China. However, the power data sources of traditional power grids are scattered, the structure is diverse, and the relationships are complex, which cannot provide comprehensive data resources and data services. In contrast, digital power grids can make intelligent decisions and realize dynamic optimization and timely correction of physical power grids through a series of digital technologies such as planning deduction, scheme simulation, and plan verification, which will effectively improve energy efficiency and ensure power supply safety. On the other hand, the widespread application of digital power grids can enable the power supply system to effectively connect with social economy, government services and other data, and give full play to the energy monitoring advantages of digital power grids with full coverage and deep perception.

Second, from the perspective of energy industry development, digital power grid is an important pillar of the energy industry that is related to the national economy and people's livelihood. The optimal allocation of energy helps to improve energy efficiency and is a fundamental measure to promote emission reduction and carbon reduction and green development. On the basis of improving the safe, reliable, green and efficient operation level of the power system, the digital power grid can promote the digital transformation of the traditional power system through the integration of "power + computing power". Its massive data storage capacity and powerful computing and analysis capabilities will not only improve the industrial efficiency of the energy industry, but also meet the external needs of other diversified industries such as carbon emissions, carbon trading, and urban governance through real-time and precise regulation, which will help reshape the energy industry pattern. Specifically, the digital power grid can not only realize multi-network integration and multi-energy complementarity, but also integrate new energy and distributed energy upstream; it can also integrate smart energy use and demand-side management downstream. Therefore, the digital construction of the power grid is particularly urgent for the healthy development of the energy industry.

Third, from the perspective of energy enterprise operation, the digital transformation of traditional power grid enterprises can drive enterprise management and business changes, thereby improving the service efficiency and synergy of enterprises. The common problems in the operation of traditional power supply service systems are: insufficient integration of professional terminals, slow command and dispatch efficiency, and insufficient control and constraint of process supervision and service complaints. This may directly lead to difficulties in timely fault handling and operation and maintenance when dealing with sudden power grid failures. If we continue to develop along the original technical path, it will be easy to form path dependence, and it will be difficult to break through the bottleneck of power industry development, and it will be even more difficult to adapt to the smooth transition of energy security and low-carbon transformation. Because of this, the organic integration of effective intelligent algorithms for specific energy fields and powerful heterogeneous computing power is an important means for traditional power grids to adapt to new forms and new tasks and meet new requirements for planning, operation and management. Based on the Southern Power Grid Cloud, China Southern Power Grid can realize data-driven smart grid planning, construction and operation, and realize the full life cycle management of equipment procurement, manufacturing, installation, operation and scrapping. To a certain extent, it has played the superposition, aggregation and multiplication effect of the development of digital technology and traditional power grids, and also provided possibilities for expanding business models such as electric vehicles, microgrids, virtual power plants, and integrated energy services.

There is no doubt that the construction of digital power grids will make the production and operation of future power grids highly dependent on networking and informatization, and network security and data security will become important guarantees for the smooth operation of digital power grids. In the next step, it is necessary to focus on the construction of a comprehensive network security protection system for digital power grids, carry out key and common technologies to prevent application security risks, and focus on cutting-edge and disruptive technologies, so as to effectively reduce the system operation risks of power grids. In other words, the construction of digital power grids requires complementary advantages. The open, interactive, and shared digital platform attributes of digital power grids must still be integrated with the safe, reliable, green, and efficient energy configuration attributes of physical power grids. On the premise of meeting the low-carbon, green, and efficient requirements, ensure the safety and stability of power grid services in the new era. (China News Service APP)