Ten thoughts on the evolution of the underlying logic of the new power system

Building a new type of power system is a dynamic process in which new energy is gradually developed as the main energy source, and different basic contradictions should be focused on solving at different stages of development.

In the different stages of the gradual development of new energy as the main energy, policy design should take into account the relationship between development and emission reduction, overall and local, short and medium term, while giving full consideration to the orderly transformation of coal power and moderate development of gas power needs, actively promote and friendly tolerance of different forms of new energy development. And its different stages of development of technical characteristics, cost characteristics to adapt to.

Building a new power system and continuously promoting new energy to become the main energy can be roughly divided into three stages: the first stage, promoting the development of new energy to become the main body of electric power installation; The second stage is to promote the development of new energy as the main body of electricity and power supply. New energy is not only the main body of power supply quantity, but also the main body of function and responsibility that can ensure the safe and stable operation of the new power system. The third stage is to promote the development of new energy as the main body of energy production and consumption in the whole society, and the utilization of new energy is deeply coupled with the energy production and consumption modes of industry, construction, transportation and other industries, forming various new forms of industrial energy integration such as "new energy +", "digital +" and "transaction +", supporting the future social development of highly electrified, low-carbon, digital, intelligent and interactive. High quality to achieve national carbon neutrality targets.

Building a new power system with new energy as the main body is a process of continuous dynamic evolution. At different stages of development, targeted policies should be designed around actively promoting and friendly absorbing the development of different forms of new energy distribution. Whether it is centralized development, or distributed utilization, or the integration form of centralized planning and distributed utilization such as photovoltaic county development, it is necessary to iteratively optimize the development model of new energy according to the changes in the technical characteristics and cost characteristics of new energy utilization, and make corresponding adjustments to the policy.

The decisive factor that determines the fundamental characteristics of the evolution direction and process of the new power system is the overall consideration of the stage capacity of social energy use and the long-term economy under the condition of security constraints. The construction of a new power system, if viewed from an economic perspective, is bound to be a dynamic process that can economically solve the cost of energy transformation, the cost of new systems and the cost of low carbon and zero carbon energy use in the industry at different stages of development.

The policy design of different development stages should grasp the main contradiction of ensuring long-term economy, and seek high economic solutions to the cost of energy transformation, the cost of new systems and the cost of low carbon and zero carbon energy use in the industry.

At different stages of development, the policy design for building a new power system should focus on solving the main cost growth problems in a specific stage of development.

In general, it is necessary to focus on solving the cost of new energy power generation in the initial stage, and to comprehensively solve the cost growth problems such as the cost of coal power transformation, the cost of new systems and the cost of low carbon zero carbon energy use in the industry.

Over the past 10 years, thanks to industrial policy support, technological resource accumulation and continuous capital investment, the cost of new energy power generation has been significantly reduced.

Research shows that around 2026, the levelized electricity cost of photovoltaic and onshore wind power in China will be lower than the cost of coal power.

However, the cost of new energy when it is connected to the grid node is not the cost of end-user electricity. Practice shows that after the penetration rate of new energy exceeds 15%, the system cost will rise significantly. At the same time, the future development must simultaneously consider the gradual withdrawal of coal power and the significant decline in the utilization hours of existing coal power units and other energy transformation costs, as well as the cost of accelerating the upgrading of various industries under the dual-carbon background. All walks of life from the high-carbon technology route to the low-carbon, zero-carbon technology route, need to invest a lot of technological innovation costs and energy mode conversion costs.

For example, in terms of solving the new system costs under the condition of high penetration of new energy, the future policy design must adhere to the government and the market.

On the one hand, it is necessary to fully consider whether the new power system can effectively stimulate the hierarchical partition of the large system into several autonomous small systems, the use of high-precision forecasting technology, flexible market mechanism and other ways to achieve local self-balance, reduce the balance power required by the large system, so as to reduce the incremental cost input.

On the other hand, it is necessary to fully consider the high coupling of energy and power with the industrial system, and encourage the balance of the system to develop from the use of flexible power resources such as pumped storage and electrochemical energy storage to the cross-network mutual benefit and multi-energy complementarity of comprehensive energy sources such as cold storage and heat storage, electrothermal coordination, and electrohydrogen coupling, with electricity as the carrier, digitalization as the support, and highly developed market transactions as the means. Maximize the use of flexible resources widely distributed in industry, construction, transportation and other fields to solve the balance problem of the future power system at low cost, and support the electrification, low-carbon, digital and intelligent transformation of the economy and society.

Third, the construction of a new power system with new energy as the main body is facing a new physical system security challenge. Ensuring the safety and resilience of physical systems is an important determinant of the evolution and cost characteristics of new power systems.

The policy design at different stages of development should actively adapt to the changing physical characteristics of the power system and the constraints of new security laws, and the purpose is to build an energy and power physical system with strong system security resilience, and be able to cope with the challenges of extreme weather, disasters, various local attacks and digital network attacks.

Ensuring physical system security has always been the bottom line and primary responsibility of power system development. Compared with the traditional power system, the connotation and content of ensuring the physical security toughness of the new power system with new energy as the main body are changing directionally.

Existing research shows that it is expected that by 2060, wind power photovoltaic installed capacity will account for more than 85%, and electricity generation will account for nearly 70%. The randomness, volatility and intermittently caused by new energy power generation have comprehensively escalated the security and stability of power supply, and it is necessary to deepen the research and prevention of new risks simultaneously, and reconstruct the power security theory and risk prevention system.

For example, new energy output is significantly affected by weather factors, with the rising penetration rate of new energy, even the climate phenomenon that seems to be accustomed to now (such as the rainy season in the south), the future will lead to the risk of a relatively large power shortage in the power grid, not to mention the risk of extreme weather, disasters, and local attacks. At the same time, the power control and operation system established on the digital and intelligent platform, the risk of being attacked by hackers and hostile parties is also a major new power security risk, and the combination of the two is more destructive.

Fourth, the construction of a new power system with new energy as the main body is facing a new national economic security challenge.

The policy design at different stages of development should be based on the height of national economic security, adhere to the concept of system, adhere to the domestic cycle as the main body, the domestic and international double cycle to promote each other, adhere to a high level of scientific and technological self-reliance, and take into account resource security, scientific and technological security, industrial security, and data security at different stages of development.

In terms of resource security, on the one hand, it is necessary to see that the construction of a new power system with new energy as the main body helps to implement the new strategy of national energy security, reduce the external dependence of the oil and gas industry (at present, the external dependence of China's crude oil exceeds 70%, and the external dependence of natural gas exceeds 40%), and is conducive to enhancing the supply resilience of China's energy resources. On the other hand, we must also see the challenge of mineral resource supply brought about by the large-scale development of new energy.

Studies have shown that the deployment of clean energy technologies depends on adequate supplies of key minerals, such as lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel and other key minerals that are the basis for manufacturing various clean energy equipment. According to the relevant research of the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), the demand for minerals in an ordinary electric car is 6 times that of an ordinary car; Building an onshore wind farm requires nine times more minerals than a gas-fired plant of the same capacity. The supply shortage and market price fluctuation of key minerals will seriously affect the large-scale development of new energy.

At present, China's dependence on raw materials such as copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese is as high as 70%. On the one hand, compared with the international, the development of China's new energy industry has a huge advantage of high localization rate, taking the photovoltaic industry as an example, domestic enterprises in the upper and middle reaches of the industry are occupying a leading position in the world. On the other hand, there is still a big gap in China's key equipment and key technologies, such as wind power megawatt main bearing, IGBT, CCUS, hydrogen energy utilization, climate prediction, flexible resources, digital and other core equipment technologies need a high level of scientific and technological self-reliance.

At the same time, data, as a new production factor, will play a two-wheel driving role in the construction of a new power system. On the one hand, the new power system can realize the deep integration of physical system and digital technology, and effectively prevent the security risks caused by information network attacks; On the other hand, ensuring the security of energy and power data, social production data, economic data and other data and high-quality analytical applications will increasingly become a major development factor affecting national economic security and enhancing national competitiveness.

5. The new power system will increasingly evolve into an energy and power resource allocation system with high coupling and efficient operation mainly driven by technology, data, computing power and algorithm, including energy flow, power flow, scarcity flexibility resource flow, information flow, carbon flow and capital flow.

The policy design at different stages of development should focus on the great changes in the operation factors of the new power system, focus on the interaction and high coupling of multi-flow, promote the optimal allocation of energy and power resources, serve the high-quality development of energy and power economy and industrial economy, and promote the process of national carbon to peak carbon neutrality.

The new power system is a deeply coupled system of digital technology and physical system, driven by technology + data + algorithm + computing power, and supported by modern energy network system, information support system, national carbon trading system and energy and power market, enabling the energy industry to optimize the allocation of all factors. Realize the highly coupled and efficient operation of energy flow, power flow, carbon flow, scarce and flexible resource flow, information flow, and capital flow, and promote the high-quality development of energy and power economy and industrial economy.

Therefore, in the future policy design, on the one hand, we should attach great importance to the cultivation of new driving factors such as technology, data, computing power and algorithms, accelerate the development of a new generation of digital technologies such as "big cloud intelligent chain", give full play to the role of new key production factors of data, rely on powerful computing power and algorithms, through massive information data analysis and high-performance computing technology, and open up all aspects of information storage in the source network. Effectively integrate with other production factors such as technology and knowledge, comprehensively improve the operation efficiency of the energy and power system, and serve the new ecology of energy integration development of the industry; On the other hand, it is necessary to fully promote the multi-flow highly coupling including energy flow, power flow, carbon flow, scarce and flexible resource flow, information flow, and capital flow. On the basis of technology-driven empowerment, to promote the construction of a new power system with the digital grid as the hub, with the orderly flow of data flow and information flow, power users, power grid enterprises, power generation enterprises, suppliers and other equipment, people and things to connect, while organically integrated with other energy systems, open up power flow and energy flow.

The flexible and balanced power system enables a high proportion of new energy sources, especially wind, solar and smart grids, as well as flexible resources such as various energy storage, to be integrated with each other. With the promotion and application of blockchain and other digital technologies and data elements in carbon market trading, the carbon market and the power market develop in synergy, and the carbon flow carrying carbon measurement and trading information is imported into the energy flow and the power flow. Through the new decentralized mechanism, new model and new business form, the service flow, information flow, carbon flow and capital flow among all nodes and entities in the system are opened up. To realize the optimal allocation of energy, electricity and social resources.

The new power system will increasingly evolve into a multi-metering everywhere, multi-transaction everywhere, multi-innovation everywhere, and multi-force everywhere, which will promote various social resources, especially idle resources of all parties, to be the most widely mobilized and optimized allocation.

The new power system will gradually develop into a national integrated infrastructure system that integrates energy infrastructure, digital infrastructure, metering infrastructure, transaction infrastructure, security infrastructure, emergency infrastructure, and institutional infrastructure.

8. The new power system will gradually develop into a comprehensive industrial energy collaborative system that can adapt to the transformation of various industries from high carbon technology routes to low carbon and zero carbon technology routes and always help various industries achieve leapfrog industrial upgrading.

The policy design at different stages of development should be based on the construction of a new collaborative relationship between the energy industry, focus on serving the accelerated upgrading of the national industry and high-quality economic development, and build a new power system with new energy as the main body.

Under the background of the national carbon peak carbon neutral strategy, the leapfrog upgrading of technologies and industries in various industries is inevitably reflected in the improvement of energy use efficiency, the adjustment of energy use structure and the low-carbon and clean development mode. In the future, China's industrial development will inevitably move towards a highly electrified, low-carbon, digital and intelligent road. The construction of a new power system naturally has the characteristics of coordinated development with industrial technological progress and industrial upgrading.

Therefore, the policy design of different development stages should fully understand the energy factor attributes and energy industry attributes of the new power system, actively promote the construction of a new type of industrial energy synergy, and serve the national industrial upgrading and high-quality economic development.

The technological upgrading and low-carbon and zero-carbon transformation of various industries need to be supported by a clean and efficient, intelligent and interactive energy system that is open and shared. We should give full play to the functions of energy factors, focus on breaking down industrial energy barriers, strengthen industrial energy coordination, match the development needs of low-carbon and zero-carbon technologies in various industries, achieve coordination and linkage between various fields of transmission and distribution, various links of source networks, load and storage, electricity and other energy systems, and energy systems and other industries, and constantly penetrate all aspects of the national economic cycle. We will improve the efficiency of social resource allocation in various industries.

The new power system will develop into a new social value creation system that can continuously create new technologies, new equipment, new forms of business, new models, and new industries, thus continuously forming a new economy.

The policy design of different development stages should be based on actively building the industrial incubation function of the new power system, cultivating new industries and new economies with high quality, and creating more social value for the high-quality development of China's economy.

The new power system is the carrier of the coordinated development and interactive development of the energy system and the social system. Under the catalysis of the national carbon peak carbon neutrality goal and the high degree of electrification, digitalization and intelligence, a high-quality new social value creation system will be born.

Policy design at different stages of development should, first, facilitate innovation in equipment and technology. Promote China to accelerate the breakthrough of a number of key technologies such as new energy generation, high-toughness power grid, high-efficiency and high-safety large-capacity energy storage, hydrogen energy and fuel cells, high-efficiency photovoltaic power generation materials, new insulating materials, superconducting materials, and wide band-gap power electronic devices. Focus on CCUS, high-efficiency and low-cost new energy generation, large-scale offshore wind power, virtual power plants, coordinated operation of load and storage of source networks, active demand response, electric hydrogen technology, integrated energy system, digital technology, market trading technology, carbon technology and other new technologies and new equipment, and smooth the development of energy economy in production, flow, distribution and consumption and other links. Accelerating the demonstration, application and promotion of low-carbon technologies will help the clean and low-carbon development of the energy and power industry and the leapfrog upgrading of the industry to accelerate the integration of energy storage technology with digital twin and artificial intelligence technology. China's super-scale market advantages and resource advantages can provide more favorable conditions for the application, promotion, iteration and innovation of new technologies.

The new power system will inevitably develop into a new era of China's power system with significant Chinese characteristics, which can flexibly adapt to the needs of different development stages of the country's carbon peak and carbon neutrality, and continue to meet the requirements of the new strategy of ecological civilization construction, common prosperity and national energy security.