China's new energy and renewable energy development: opportunities, constraints

I. Opportunities for the development of new and renewable energy in China

The development of new energy and renewable energy in China has good resource conditions, to cope with the needs of global climate change and to adapt to the grim reality of domestic "transformation mode and adjustment structure", which has created good internal and external conditions for the development of renewable energy in China. In recent years, China has promulgated and implemented the "Renewable Energy Law", which puts forward the target of 15% energy consumption by non-fossil energy by 2020, and puts forward higher requirements for the development of renewable energy. The State Council has made a decision on accelerating the cultivation and development of strategic emerging industries, taking new energy as an important part of China's strategic new industries, which has greatly promoted the development of China's new energy and renewable energy, achieved breakthrough progress in renewable energy technology, market and service system, and laid an important foundation for the large-scale development of renewable energy.

Actively promoted by the policy, the pattern of rapid development of new energy in our country has initially taken shape at present. In 2011, China's hydropower installed capacity exceeded 200 million kilowatts, ranking first in the world. The total installed capacity of wind power has reached 47 million kilowatts, about 100 times that of 2002, and has doubled over the years, ranking second in the world. Solar installed capacity reached 3 million kilowatts, becoming the fastest growing region in the world; The installed capacity of nuclear power plants is over 10 million kilowatts, with 27 units under construction, ranking first in the world. In the next ten years, China will gradually change the current coal-based energy structure, increase the proportion of high-quality fossil energy, and significantly increase the supply capacity of natural gas, nuclear energy and renewable energy.

By the end of 2010, the amount of renewable energy included in energy statistics such as hydropower, wind power and biological liquid fuel was about 262 million tons of standard coal, accounting for about 8.06% of the total energy consumption. Taking into account non-commercial varieties such as biogas and solar thermal utilization, the annual utilization of renewable energy is 306 million tons of standard coal, accounting for about 9.42% of the total energy consumption in the year. Compared with 2005, the contribution rate of renewable energy in China's 11th Five-Year Plan period is increasing at an average annual rate of 12.6%.

Second, the constraints facing the development of new energy and renewable energy in China

Grid-connected consumption difficulties. Grid-connected and consumption problems are the biggest bottlenecks restricting the effective use of new and renewable energy and industrial development in China. China's installed capacity of wind power has ranked first in the world, the growth rate of solar power generation ranks first in the world, because the actual power generation of new energy has a large gap compared with the design level, "wind abandonment", "light abandonment", power limiting phenomenon is serious, and the development is difficult to sustain. According to China's current relevant laws and regulations, new energy power must be unified through the large power grid after voltage enhancement, and distributed rooftop photovoltaic power generation, small-scale wind power generation, distributed natural gas multi-generation power plants are very difficult in our country.

Industrial behavior disorder. For a long time, China's renewable energy industry lacks clear and feasible development goals, coupled with the lack of technical standards and mandatory testing and certification systems, enterprises have no corresponding technical thresholds, and some projects have been launched without scientific decision-making, which once led to the "explosive" expansion of the industry. At present, polysilicon production, solar cells and wind power equipment manufacturing has far exceeded the market capacity. In order to seize the market, some products are put on the market in large quantities without any testing, resulting in vicious competition. Due to the small scale and scattered production enterprises such as polysilicon, energy consumption and material consumption are even more than twice that of foreign countries, which aggravate the pressure of energy conservation and emission reduction. At the same time, the quality of new energy generation is unsatisfactory, safety accidents are frequent, and industrial development is slowing down.

Critical technologies are lacking. The lack of key technologies has greatly hindered the formation of the competitiveness of China's new energy industry. China is heavily dependent on foreign countries in several key technologies and equipment fields of new energy, and 92% of the key components of China's fan rely on imports; 90% of the silicon materials and equipment needed for photovoltaic power generation are imported. The current popular advanced megawatt wind turbines, biomass direct combustion power generation boilers, solar photovoltaic polycrystalline silicon raw materials and other high-tech, high-value equipment and materials are also all dependent on imports. The lack of effective digestion, absorption and re-innovation of the technical equipment purchased with huge sums of money, and most of the profits are obtained by developed countries. Although China already has Goldwind, Suntech and other high-tech new energy enterprises that have the ability to compete with foreign manufacturers, the vast majority of new energy equipment manufacturers still have problems such as small scale, low degree of intensification, backward technology, and generally low product technical content and unstable quality, which can only meet low-end demand.