China's energy industry has been leapfrogging development in 70 years, and low-carbon clean transformation overcomes difficulties

Polaris Transmission and Distribution Network News: 70 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, it has witnessed the leapfrog takeoff of China's energy. As the basic material basis for human survival and the fuel power of national economic development, energy has always played an important role that cannot be ignored in improving people's quality of life, promoting national economic growth, geopolitics and international diplomacy. Looking back on China's energy industry in 70 years, from its weak foundation and tight supply and demand to its current supply, efficient energy conservation and structural optimization, the energy industry has achieved remarkable achievements.

Two internationally recognized highlights of China's energy development

Over the past 70 years, one of the highlights of China's energy development is that the government has ensured that everyone has access to sustainable and safe energy services through reasonable policy design and financial support.

Universal energy services are one of the main goals of any country's energy development, and China's leapfrog development of electricity is also benefiting people's livelihood. In 1978, the national power grid coverage rate was less than half; in 1990, China's power supply rate had reached 93%; and in 2015, China officially announced that it had solved the power consumption problem of the last power-free population. At this point, all 1.4 billion people can enjoy the benefits of universal electricity services. Correspondingly, nearly 1 billion people around the world had no electricity in 2017.

From 1978 to 2018, China's per capita electricity consumption increased from 260 kWh to more than 4,900 kWh, with an average annual growth rate of 7.6%. In 2018, China's per capita electricity consumption was 50% higher than the world average, and China's power supply reliability rate reached 99.82%. Among them, the power supply reliability rate in 14 super-large cities and above reached 99.95%, exceeding most developing countries and close to the level of developed countries. In order to achieve the transformation of rural users from "using power on" to "using good power", during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the country implemented a new round ofRural power grid transformationProject, accelerate the construction and upgrading of rural power grids. At the same time, the government has placed more emphasis on photovoltaic power station construction indicators on poor areas, combining the basic electricity use of people in poor areas with the fight against poverty. The popularization of electricity has brought new opportunities for economic development in remote areas and played a positive role in creating a social development environment.

Over the past 70 years, another highlight of China's energy development is the rapid development of the new energy industry. At present, China is the fastest developing country in the world. Within 10 years, it has completed the process of starting from new energy to being the world's first, fully leveraging the manufacturing advantages of China's country on which it is based.

China's new energy development, especially the domestic market, developed later than developed countries. Its technology was not advanced when it started, its subsidies were relatively not high, and its development model was unclear. However, China's new energy industry is not limited to this short-term difficulty. It takes the advantage of large-scale production cost as the entry point to solve this fundamental problem from the perspective of overall cultivation and moderate competition. Taking photovoltaics as an example, manufacturing in China has caused the cost of photovoltaic modules to drop by 90% in 10 years, breaking the learning cost curve of developed countries over the past 40 years. Starting from scale advantages and cost advantages, accumulating talent advantages and technical advantages, and ultimately achieving market advantages, China's new energy development provides other countries with a development path that can be learned from.

Difficulties and challenges of low-carbon clean transformation

China's leapfrog energy growth has accompanied the use of large-scale fossil energy, resulting in rapid growth in environmental pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. In addition, China is a major consumer country, and the importance of energy security is self-evident. In the future, China's low-carbon and clean energy development needs to emphasize safety, cost and overall system efficiency.

Only when the proportion is large enough can new energy replace coal while meeting the growth of energy demand. The basic contradiction in China's new energy development has changed. Photovoltaics and wind power have begun to be accessed in the grid at parity, and electric vehicles have also had basic competitiveness. The next problem facing development is how to carry out large-scale supporting infrastructure construction, including the ability to enter thousands of households, so that the built photovoltaic and wind power can generate electricity in full. These are issues involving infrastructure and are the main aspects that government policies need to support in the future.

Low-carbon and clean energy transformation can create economic opportunities, but it also faces different political and economic realities. The government will emphasize different energy development goals at different stages of development and in different domestic and international economic contexts, including supporting economic growth, environmental sustainable development and meeting universal energy consumption. In the past, the government generally balanced different development goals through prices and taxes. With the rise of the Internet and renewable energy, it can be developed in the future.Comprehensive energy servicesMake it an important means to balance the energy development goals in the new era, while ensuring environmental sustainability, taking into account universal energy services, and supporting economic growth by improving energy efficiency. at presentEnergy Internet, smart energy, multi-energy complementarity, energy microgrid, etc. are powerful tools for energy companies to deploy comprehensive energy services.

China's low-carbon clean transformation strategy needs to take into account energy costs and energy security, otherwise it will be difficult to implement in practice. Clean coal utilization is subject to high costs and carbon emissions, and requires the government's policy orientation to be determined based on the technology and overall energy system security efficiency. Generally speaking, the clean utilization of coal includes the cleanliness and efficiency improvement of the entire industrial chain, and the basic foothold of coal-to-gas and coal-to-oil is the transfer of environmental pollution, reducing pollution costs and ensuring energy security. The government needs to carry out industry planning from these perspectives. In addition, if the proportion of wind power and photovoltaics in electricity consumption increases significantly in the future, effective complementarity between coal and other energy sources may also be an important aspect of the clean development of coal. Finally, due to the huge number of large thermal power units in China and the short operation years, China's thermal power will be strongly locked for a considerable period of time.

(The author is Lin Boqiang, director of the China Energy Policy Research Institute of Xiamen University)