Under the big goal of carbon neutrality, why does our country still develop natural gas?

By the end of 2020, the total length of domestic long-distance natural gas pipelines will be 1.1×104 km, the urban gas pipeline network will be 7.0×104 km, and the receiving capacity of 22 coastal LNG receiving stations will be 8.8×107 t/a. The 27 gas storage units that have been built have a storage capacity of 1.61×1010 m3 and a peak load capacity of 1.02×1010 m3. Overall, the development of natural gas infrastructure has supported China's natural gas imports to exceed 1.4×1011 m3, and natural gas consumption to reach 3.28×1011 m3.

1. Power generation

Compared with coal-fired power generation (coal power), gas-fired power generation (gas power) has the characteristics of clean, low-carbon, flexible and efficient.

① Gas power has obvious environmental advantages over coal power, and the emissions of CO2 and nitrogen oxides during the combustion and utilization of natural gas are reduced by 44% and 50% compared with coal, and there is no dust particles and SO2 emissions.

(2) The peak-regulating gas-electric unit has the advantages of fast start and stop, fast climb rate, good adjustment performance, etc. It takes 5 hours to start the coal-electric cooling unit, and only 9~10 minutes to start the peak-regulating gas-electric unit at full load. The peaking gas power unit can not only improve the power grid security problems caused by the large-scale access of intermittent and random renewable energy, but also solve the problems of energy efficiency reduction and emission increase in the deep peaking process of large coal power units.

(3) Natural gas power generation is highly efficient, and the energy utilization rate of cogeneration can reach 80%, far exceeding 30% of ordinary generator sets. As of October 2020, China's gas-fired power plants mainly have two types of installed units: cogeneration and peak load (peak load), and the installed capacity and regional distribution are shown in Figure 3. The total installed capacity is 97 GW, including 39.5 GW peaking unit (41%), and the natural gas used for power generation reaches 5.71×1010 m3 throughout the year. With the continuous promotion of air pollution prevention and control and large-scale intervention of renewable energy, the scale of demand for power peak balancing is increasing, and gas-fired power generation based on peak balancing power plants is expected to usher in great development.

2. Transportation

Natural gas has significant economic and environmental advantages in the field of transportation. 1 L gasoline and 1 m3 natural gas heat is basically the same, in the international oil price of 60 US dollars/barrel when the domestic gasoline retail price is about 7 yuan /L, while the natural gas gas price is only 3.5~5.0 yuan /m3, that is, the fuel cost of natural gas vehicles is 50%~70% of the fuel vehicle. Compared with gasoline vehicles, emissions of CO, CO2 and nitrogen oxides in the exhaust gas of natural gas vehicles are significantly reduced, and zero emissions of suspended particles, lead oxide and other harmful substances can be achieved (see Table 2).

In addition, natural gas vehicles have incomparable advantages over electric vehicles in long-distance passenger and freight applications, especially in cold areas, and can jointly promote the energy revolution in the transportation field with electric vehicles. By the end of 2019, the number of natural gas vehicles in China exceeded 7.6 million, including more than 7 million compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles such as taxis and city buses, and 600,000 LNG heavy trucks. With about 6,000 CNG filling stations and 3,900 LNG filling stations, it has become the world's largest transportation natural gas market. The consumption of natural gas in the transportation sector is 3.63×1010 m3, and the equivalent substitute oil consumption is about 2.96×107 t.

At present, natural gas vehicles account for less than 3% of the total number of motor vehicles in the country, with the natural gas infrastructure tends to improve, driven by economic and environmental factors, natural gas vehicles will make a significant contribution to the low-carbon transformation of China's transportation field.

3. Urban gas field

In recent years, with the acceleration of urbanization in China and the help of air pollution prevention and control policies, the demand for urban gas has continued to grow. In particular, with "coal to gas" as the core of the "Air pollution prevention and Control action Plan", "13th Five-Year Plan for Energy Development", "three-year Action Plan to win the blue Sky Defense War", "2017 air pollution prevention and control work Plan for Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and surrounding areas", "winter clean heating plan for the Northern region (2017-2021) With the intensive introduction of policies and measures such as "Opinions on Accelerating the Utilization of Natural Gas", urban gas consumption has maintained a rapid growth, increasing from 3.6×1010 m3 in 2010 to 6.41×1010 m3 in 2020 (excluding transportation gas).

By the end of 2019, the degree of urbanization in China had reached 60.6%, and the number of people using natural gas was 390 million, accounting for 28% of the total population and 43% of the urban population, respectively. It is estimated that by 2035, China's urbanization rate will reach 72%, and if more than 70% of the urban population uses natural gas, urban natural gas consumption is expected to double.