Analysis of the domestic decentralized wind power market and business development plan from 2020 to 2021

Polaris Wind Power Network News:one.Distributed wind powerDevelopment overview and characteristics

As early as 2009, my country proposed the concept of decentralized wind power. In the past decade, the national competent authorities have issued a number of documents to guide and support decentralized wind power to varying degrees. As of the end of 2019, a total of 203 decentralized wind power projects in 20 provinces across the country have obtained "road strips", of which 127 projects have been built to generate power, with a total installed capacity of nearly 5 million kilowatts, and the development has begun to take shape.

On May 17, 2017, the National Energy Administration issued the "Notice on Accelerating the Construction of Decentralized Access Wind Power Projects", requiring the acceleration of the development of decentralized wind power and vigorously promoting the local utilization of wind power. This is an important task in wind power development during the 13th Five-Year Plan period. In April 2018, the National Energy Administration issued the "Interim Management Measures for the Development and Construction of Decentralized Wind Power Projects", encouraging all types of enterprises and individuals to invest, build and operate decentralized wind power projects as project units on the premise of complying with the overall land use plan. Hebei, Henan, Jilin, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and other provinces have successively issued plans for the construction of decentralized wind power access.

In October 2019, the official website of the National Energy Administration issued the "Interim Management Measures for the Development and Construction of Decentralized Wind Power Projects" (hereinafter referred to as the Management Measures), sending a strong and clear signal to encourage the development of decentralized wind power. From the perspective of the general environment and trends of the energy revolution, decentralized wind power is in line with my country's development route of clean, low-carbon and decentralized energy production. The current development environment and market opportunity of decentralized wind power are basically ripe. The introduction of management measures will further clear institutional and mechanism obstacles, promote the formation of a spark in decentralized wind power, and become the next outlet for wind power development.

After years of large-scale development in the wind power industry, wind resources above 5.5 meters in land-based non-power-limited areas have almost been divided up; power-limited areas are far away from power load areas, and wind abandonment is likely to cause investment damage. There are still many decentralized resources in non-power-limited areas, and decentralized wind power has becomeWind power industryAn important supplement to sustainable development. Using scattered and insufficiently concentrated wind energy resources is a need to improve wind energy utilization, optimize wind power layout, and promote industrial development. I think there are two main characteristics of decentralized wind power.

The biggest feature of distributed wind power is that it is small in scale and can achieve nearby consumption without large-scale delivery.

According to current policy requirements, the installed capacity of decentralized access wind power projects is generally between 6MW and 50MW, and the total capacity of a single project does not exceed 50MW. Decentralized wind power projects do not require new high-voltage transmission lines and 110kV and 66kV substations, which can save investment in the transmission and distribution links.

The capacity of decentralized wind power projects is small, and the proportion of the area is small. The preliminary approval procedures for land, planning, site selection, etc. are short.

According to the Measures for the Development and Construction of Decentralized Wind Power Projects, the policy registration system is likely to be implemented in decentralized wind power projects, and the project approval process and time will be greatly reduced.

2. Analysis of decentralized wind power development resources

According to the already clear route for subsidies for non-water renewable energy, all wind power projects will be available for parity at the end of 2020, and the benchmark price of wind power will inevitably be gradually lowered during this period. Therefore, for the company, from the current to the end of 2021 is the best window period for decentralized wind power development. How to seize the air outlet and achieve high-efficiency and high-quality development of distributed wind power? I think the key is to accurately grasp the differences between decentralized and centralized wind power, break away from the inherent model of centralized wind power development, and adopt suitable development methods. If the centralized wind power development model is completely copied, it will probably be half the result with twice the effort, or even go in the opposite direction.

Specifically, it is summarized into six key points.

The site selection method has changed from "finding wind" to "finding network load"

Centralized wind power has always adopted the macro site selection method of "finding wind first", that is, first find sites with development value based on wind energy resources, and then verify whether the site has key conditions such as network connection, environmental protection, and land. Due to the small capacity of decentralized wind power, it cannot afford excessive line investment, and the construction site must be closer to the grid access point. According to regulations, decentralized wind power must be absorbed at a voltage level of 110 kV or below. "Fake" decentralized projects that reverse power to the previous voltage level power grid of 110 kV will be strictly supervised and punished. To this end, decentralized wind power projects must match the project capacity and the power load as much as possible, otherwise it will cause serious power limits and affect project revenue. Therefore, the location selection of distributed wind power should be "finding the network load" first. The consumption capacity of distribution network or direct power supply users is the primary factor in determining whether the project has development value. Investors should have a comprehensive understanding of the architecture, load capacity and load characteristics of the distribution network to be connected to. For distributed wind power projects that are "spontaneously used and self-use and over-powered power grid", we must also grasp the load and characteristics of users of direct power supply. Most of these key data are in the hands of power grid companies. Ensuring that the grid-related information is accurate, open and transparent is the primary prerequisite for the development of decentralized wind power.

From a geographical perspective, the economically developed central and eastern plains are ideal areas for the development of decentralized wind power. Most of these areas have higher wind shear and better wind energy resources, which will be the key areas for the development of decentralized wind power. From the perspective of load characteristics, various industrial parks, development zones and large factories with stable power load are also ideal users of decentralized wind power.

The development model has changed from "circling resources" to "circling land"

Centralized wind power is mostly developed in the form of "circling resources", that is, sign an agreement with the government to occupy resources in areas with excellent wind resources, and then set up a tower to measure wind and go through approval procedures. This approach has been subject to increasingly strict land and ecological restrictions in the central and eastern regions, especially in the load centers, where it is actually difficult to find large areas of available land. In order to solve the problem of land restrictions, the decentralized wind power management Measures clearly stated for the first time that in addition to the general construction land approval and agreement transfer channels for conventional wind power development, investors can use the unit's own construction land or rent other units' construction land to build decentralized wind power projects. This measure is of great significance and is expected to release a large amount of idle construction land. In the future, the development of decentralized wind power in central and eastern regions will adopt more ways to rent idle construction land for industrial parks, development zones and large industrial enterprises. Especially for the distributed wind power project that "spontaneous self-use and surplus electricity access" that directly rents users' own or nearby construction land, which can not only save road and line investment, but also make full use of users' existing electrical facilities, reduce network connection investment, and obtain a higher electricity price level through negotiation. It is an ideal development model and the largest market space for decentralized wind power development.

Therefore, the development capacity of decentralized wind power development is relatively limited by the "circle of resources" method. It is necessary to change the development method and adopt more "land enclosure" methods similar to distributed photovoltaic "roof grabbing" to rent land from many land users. Many "landlords" are often potential power users, locking in construction land and high-quality customers. From this point of view, decentralized wind power capacity is miniaturized, investment threshold is low, location is diversified, and land is multi-source. As for a single project, it is naturally more suitable for small and medium-sized investors. This is the reason why relevant policies encourage the diversification of investment entities and the reason why the inevitable diversification of investment entities is expected. In the future, the competition for decentralized wind power "land encirclement" may be more intense than the "roof grabbing" of distributed photovoltaics.

Adopt more advanced wind energy resource assessment methods

Accurate wind energy resource assessment is a fundamental prerequisite for ensuring the economic and safety of wind farms, especially for decentralized wind farms in low-wind speed zones. The biggest problem in the assessment of distributed wind power resources is the source of wind measurement data. It is obviously unrealistic to completely copy the evaluation method of centralized wind farms, especially small-capacity wind farms with only one or several wind turbines. If a tower is to measure wind for more than one year, it will increase the investment cost, and in the environment of fierce competition in the development market, the development rights may have changed hands before the wind measurement is over. Accurate and rapid resource assessment is a basic requirement for decentralized wind power development.

Fortunately, in 2015, the China Meteorological Administration issued the "Distributed"Wind power generationTechnical Guidelines for Wind Energy Resource Assessment (QX/T308-2015)", this is the only technical standard for decentralized wind power resource assessment so far, but it also provides directional ideas and technical basis for related work. According to the technical guidelines and combined with the latest wind measurement technology, after recent practice, domestic pioneers in the development of decentralized wind power have basically formed a relatively mature decentralized wind power resource evaluation method. That is, a mesoscale numerical weather forecast mode is combined with a small-scale numerical model based on computational fluid mechanics to numerical simulation of the distribution of wind energy resources in the assessment area, and the simulation results are checked using the wind measurement tower data in the adjacent area. If necessary, laser wind measurement radar is installed in the assessment area for short-term wind measurement for further verification. Compared with the centralized wind farm resource evaluation method, this evaluation method does not require the establishment of a wind measurement tower in the evaluation area, which seems to simplify the process and actually puts forward higher requirements for resource evaluation capabilities: it is necessary to have mesoscale numerical simulation calculation capabilities to master accurate mesoscale mesometric data; it is necessary to master a large amount of wind measurement tower data around the evaluation area and actual operation data of the unit, and accurately verify the numerical simulation results. Simply put, it is to replace wind tower data with wind resource big data + cloud computing.

In practical applications, it is also necessary to adapt to local conditions. In the low-wind speed areas of the central and eastern plains, experience has been proven that the above-mentioned methods are used to conduct resource assessments to meet the economic and safety evaluation requirements. For projects with 110 kV or multi-point access and large capacity, wind measurement and wind energy resource evaluation can be considered in centralized wind power mode. For small-capacity distributed projects in complex terrain areas, we must comprehensively judge whether the tower is needed to measure wind based on the surrounding wind resource data.

Further reduce power grid access costs

Long-term grid access processing process and low efficiency and excessive network access investment have always been one of the important reasons restricting the development of decentralized wind power. The newly introduced management measures simplify and clarify the connection process and processing time limit, and the connection efficiency is expected to be significantly improved. In terms of grid access standards, State Grid Corporation issued the enterprise standard "Technical Regulations on Decentralized Wind Power Access Power Grid (Q/GDW1866-2012)" in 2013. There are two problems during the implementation process. First, the development companies generally believe that the technical regulations take too much grid safety into account, resulting in many non-essential cost investment. For example, the decentralized wind power projects in Lankao, Henan and Jiangyin, Jiangsu have capacity of 11MW and 6.6MW respectively, and the investment in switch stations is close to 8 million, which greatly increases the cost and actually has a large room for optimization. Second, the standards stipulated by local power grid companies are not uniform. Taking reactive power compensation devices as an example, some areas do not require installation, while others require installation. Therefore, in terms of reducing investment in network connections, relevant government departments and power grid enterprises need to continue to take further effective measures, optimize and unify technical standards and implement them effectively, and enhance the market competitiveness of decentralized wind power. During the visit, we also discussed and exchanged views with relevant leaders, and government departments still have great support for decentralized wind power.

Follow stricter host selection criteria

Compared with centralized wind power, the wind turbines selected for decentralized wind power must have better power generation performance to adapt to low wind speed characteristics, maximize production capacity, and ensure project returns. We must be more intelligent and have higher reliability to adapt to the operation and maintenance mode of unmanned and remote centralized control, ensure stable operation and reduce operation and maintenance costs. The most important thing is to have higher security, which may not be paid enough attention from the industry. Most centralized wind power projects are located in remote areas and away from crowded areas. Even if extreme accidents such as tower collapse, fire, and blade fall off will generally not cause other losses. Decentralized wind power mostly uses high tower tube and long blade technology, close to production and living areas. Once such accidents occur, it is very easy to cause major additional losses outside the wind farm or even personal casualties. This will inevitably lead to panic and resistance from local governments and the public, causing a fatal blow to the development of decentralized wind power. Therefore, I believe that wind turbines used in distributed scenarios should meet higher safety standards, apply more updated sensing technologies, and have more safety monitoring and protection functions. In particular, online monitoring functions such as tower inclination, blade cracks, and fire conditions should become standard configurations.

Change the development, construction and operation and maintenance management model

How to manage decentralized wind power is a headache for investors and a problem that "wind power tycoons" are very concerned about. For small and medium-sized investors, most do not have sufficient human resources and professional management capabilities. For large power generation groups, if there are multiple projects in a small area with large capacity and the total capacity is large, the development, construction and operation and management model of centralized wind power can also be continued. However, in most cases, the project capacity is small and scattered, and managed in a traditional way, which is both waste of manpower and material resources and is inefficient, reducing the market competitiveness of the project.

Therefore, I think the development and construction of decentralized wind power projects is obviously more suitable for adopting the management model of "small owners, big consulting". In the future, the company can also develop related businesses and entrust the entire project development process or the construction and operation after the project approval to a professional service company. The owner is only responsible for making relevant requirements and making good process supervision and key point decisions. The development of decentralized wind power will give rise to more demands for professional management services. At present, there are many such professional companies, but the professional service capabilities suitable for the characteristics of decentralized wind power need to be deepened and cultivated.

Judging from the current industry situation, wind turbine manufacturers with high market share have great advantages. In addition to the excellent performance of the wind turbines themselves, these manufacturers have mastered wind energy resources and wind turbine operation big data, mastered digital development and operation and maintenance management technology, and have rich experience in wind power design, construction and centralized operation and maintenance management. These advantages will eventually be transformed into competitiveness in service quality and service price, which is conducive to further enhancing the market competitiveness of decentralized wind power.