Mr. Wang Min is an Executive Vice President at the State Grid Corporation of China. He was appointed to this role in 2010 and is mainly responsible for modern corporate management, corporate social responsibility and corporate public relations.
Prior to the State Grid Corporation of China, Wang had worked at Shandong Dezhou Electric Power Bureau, Shandong Electric Power Bureau, Shandong Electric Power Company, State Power Corporation of China.
Question 1: How do you evaluate China's power industry development in the 12th Five-Year Plan? What should be expected in the 13th Five-Year Plan?
China’s power industry has developed at a remarkable rate during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015). Electricity supply capacity, energy savings and access to power services continue to grow, while operation of the power has been stable and safe.
Generation capacity and total electricity consumption are growing at an annual average of 8.9% and 8.3% respectively, and play important roles in economic and social development. By the end of 2014, the installed capacity and the generation capacity of mainland China was top in the world, reaching 1.36TW and 5,500TWh respectively.
Advancements in cleaner energy options were also made during this period. The installed capacity of integrated wind power and PV generation exceeded 120GW, while coal-fired thermal power and the emissions of major pollutants were within advanced world standards.
China’s pace of the accelerated scientific and technological innovation and industrial transformation and upgrade led the world in the fields of UHV AC and DC power transmission, smart grid, ultra-supercritical power generation, large hydropower station and the third generation of nuclear power.
Looking forward, the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) is a crucial period for China to build a moderately prosperous society, as well as an important opportunity for energy development and transformation.
Electricity demand will continue to grow rapidly. It is estimated by 2020, the total electricity consumption, national power generation capacity and electricity consumption per capita will be 1.5 times that of 2014.
Clean replacement in energy production and electricity replacement in energy consumption (“Two Replacements”) will become a major trend and direction. The installed capacity of non-fossil energy will reach 38%, led by hydropower, wind power, solar power and nuclear power; while the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption will rise to 15%.
Question 2: China plans to invest two trillion yuan in the next five years to upgrade distribution grid infrastructure and SGCC will start large-scale UHV grid construction. How will these actions affect energy reliability and development?
Developing the grid is of great importance to China and the recent Action Plan of Distribution Grid Construction and Transformation (2015-2020) demonstrates this. The plan illustrates how China is investing 2 trillion yuan to develop a modern distribution grid to better meet the electricity demand, improve reliability and promote smart technology.
By 2020, the aim is to achieve a power supply reliability rate of more than 99.99%, and an annual average outage time that will be no more than an hour by 2020.
The main priorities in developing the distribution grid are: coordinating the joint development of urban and rural power grid; enhancing the equipment; improving power supply reliability rate and quality to satisfy the rapid growth of urban and rural electricity demand; driving the integration of new technologies such as cloud computing and big data with the grid; and improving the grid’s coordinated control, clean energy generation forecast and energy distribution.
SGCC’s course of action moving forward is in line with both the action plan and the 13th Five-Year Plan. We will be accelerating the construction of a strong, widely interconnected and open smart grid; as well as enhance the grid’s security, resource allocation and green development capacity, in order to provide safe, reliable, cost-effective and low-carbon power for economic and social development.
To date, we have deployed 177 million smart meters and enhanced the distribution grid’s accommodation capacity of new energy, distributed generation and diversified load, to provide more reliable, more convenient and improved services for consumers.
It is estimated that by 2020, we will achieve cross-region transmission capacity of 380GW, and a greatly enhanced capacity for optimal resource allocation that will see hydro, thermal, wind and solar complement each other – and better promote energy conservation, emission reduction and sustainability.
Question 3: China is the biggest investor in renewable energy. Please share some concrete actions in renewable energy integration in China.
China is committed to conserving energy, reducing emissions and solving problems regarding energy, environment and climate change. Renewable energy plays an important role in the country’s energy production, consumption and sustainability. By the end of 2014, renewable energy in mainland China accounted for 32% of the total installed capacity and 22% of total energy generation.
The Chinese government has taken numerous steps to promote renewable energy. In 2005, renewable energy was classified as a national priority and the renewable energy target policy was established among other measures. This was revisited in 2009 and led to the establishment of a renewable energy development fund. The 11th and 12th Five-Year Plans (2006-2015) also clearly put forward measures and policies to develop the renewable energy market, including the construction of 89 new energy demonstration cities and 30 distributed PV demonstration zones.
SGCC is an active supporter of renewable energy development in China. The company has the world’s biggest wind power capacity and fastest solar power growth, as a result of its investment on integrating renewable energy into the grid in a safe, reliable and timely manner. SGCC also oversaw a large number of inter-provincial and cross-regional projects to promote the large-scale exploitation of hydropower, wind power and solar power.
SGCC ensured that energy distribution on the grid was optimized, efficient and prioritized clean energy. In 2014, the average utilization hours of wind power and solar power generation equipment reached 1,876 and 1,255 hours respectively in SGCC’s distribution areas.
The company also contributed to the rapid development of distributed PV generation by implementing a distributed generation integration service policy and establishing a convenient and efficient integration service management system for use at no cost. By the end of 2014, a cumulative 2.65GW of distributed PV generation from 6,936 households was integrated to the grid in SGCC’s service areas, increasing 130% from 2013.
SGCC also contributed to technological innovation in renewable energy. The company built two national research centers – namely, the National Wind Power Integration Research and Test Center (NWIC) and Integration and National Energy Research (Test) Center for Solar Power – and played a significant role in several breakthroughs in new energy integration and transmission, operation control, distributed generation and micro-grid, and large-capacity power storage.
Question 4: How do you think China will promote regional energy cooperation through “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR)?
“One Belt, One Road” encompasses an area of immense economic potential, with 4.4 billion people (63% of the world’s population) and a combined GDP of US$21 trillion (29% of the world’s total). Most of them are emerging economies or developing countries with rapidly growing economies and huge demand for investments for energy and electricity infrastructure construction.
OBOR aims to develop economic partnerships with countries along the Silk Road and the 21st century Maritime Silk Road, with a priority on interconnecting infrastructure. On the energy side, this includes promoting the construction of cross-border electricity and transmission channels, and actively cooperation on developing the regional power grid. This will be supported by the AIIB.
Energy interconnection in Asia is an important part of the OBOR strategy. Now, SGCC is actively planning a number of UHV projects to interconnect with Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Nepal, which will further promote infrastructure, economic and social development of neighboring countries.
Question 5: China plays an important role in global energy sector. What is SGCC’s opinion on and vision for global energy interconnection?
On September 26, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a new concept of sustainable development at the UN Sustainable Development Summit and initiated the exploration of global energy interconnections to promote a clean and green way to satisfy the global electricity demand. It points out a way to advance the revolution of world energy production and consumption and facilitates the sustainable development of energy and electric power.
In our opinion, global energy interconnection is crucial for sustainable development of global energy. It lays the foundation for “Two Replacements”, which we see as the solution to the energy dilemma. This comprises “Clean Replacement” of energy production – replacing fossil energy with clean energy in the production sector in order to make clean energy the dominant component of the energy mix; and “Electricity Replacement” of energy consumption – replacing fossil fuels like coal and gas with electricity in the consumption sector in order to raise the share of electric energy in end consumption.
A global energy interconnection connects large clean energy bases in the North Pole and the Equator and various distributed generation. Thus power grids in different continents with time and seasonal differences can be closely linked together. It’s a system in which wind power, PV power, hydropower and thermal power can complement each other and adjust in different geographical areas, a system that strongly ensures power supply with extensive service area and sound accommodation capability, a system that is highly safe and reliable, green and with low-carbon footprint. It will become an important direction for the development of world energy and electric power.