2013 Power Industry Opportunities Outweigh Challenges

The “12th Five-Year Plan for Energy Development” puts forward the requirement of “dual control” of energy consumption intensity and total consumption; haze weather continues to appear in a large area, and the power industry has received widespread attention from public opinion...

What kind of impact will the new development situation have on power generation companies? The judgment of the cloud citizens of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the general manager of China Huadian Corporation is: "Opportunities are greater than challenges, and the overall situation will be better than last year."

In terms of opportunities, one is that development will usher in new opportunities. The 18th CPC National Congress proposed to take the road of intensive, smart, green, low-carbon new urbanization. The state builds large-scale coal bases, vigorously develops new energy and renewable energy, and vigorously develops unconventional oil and gas resources. These are power generation companies. Structural adjustment has brought new opportunities. The second is to further improve the business environment. Driven by the country’s expansion of domestic demand and increased infrastructure construction, the demand for electric power will maintain a certain growth momentum throughout the year. At the same time, due to coal demand, new production capacity, net imports and other factors, the overall supply and demand of coal is loose, and the lack of coal price rise power is conducive to the further improvement of thermal power business environment. Third, the funding situation has eased. The country continues to implement proactive fiscal policies and prudent monetary policies, and increases financial support for the development of the entity’s economy and maintains a modest increase in loans. The financing environment for power generation companies will improve and the financing costs are expected to decrease.

For the new challenges that have emerged this year, cloud citizens believe that they are mainly concentrated in three areas. “First, environmental protection requirements are getting higher and higher, and the state’s supervision and requirements for energy-saving and emission reduction in thermal power and hydro-eco-environmental protection are increasingly strict, and the environmental protection input of power generation enterprises will increase substantially. Second, the cost pressure remains large. In order to deepen the reform of natural gas prices, some coal and gas prices are expected to rise significantly, which will put pressure on power generation companies. Third, the market competition will become increasingly fierce, and will be affected by factors such as oversupply of installed capacity and increased marginal contribution of thermal power. The enthusiasm for power generation will increase and the competition for power will further increase,” he said.

In terms of building eco-electric power, the cloud citizens believe: “The power industry must continue to unswervingly follow the path of a new type of low-carbon, environmentally-friendly, resource-saving, and industrially resource-saving development while sticking to three-legged walks.”

First, we will vigorously develop clean energy based on hydropower. According to estimates, by 2020, the installed capacity of conventional hydropower should reach more than 330 million kilowatts, so as to ensure non-fossil energy development goals and reduce excessive dependence on coal. In compliance with the low-carbon trend, Huadian Group has always regarded the development of hydropower as the strategic focus of transition and structural adjustment, and is committed to constructing "demonstration projects, green projects, and people's livelihood projects" for hydropower development. The installed hydropower capacity is nearly 17 million kilowatts. This is equivalent to saving more than 53 million tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 120 million tons.

The second is to cultivate strategic emerging industries. It is necessary to increase the development of distributed energy. The energy efficiency of distributed energy projects is high, and the comprehensive environmental benefits are very prominent. Take the Guangzhou University City distributed energy station as an example. The largest distributed energy station in the country currently has an installed capacity of 2 sets of 78,000-kilowatt units. The distributed energy station uses natural gas as a primary energy source, and cascades energy utilization through cold, heat and electricity triple supply technologies. The energy utilization efficiency has been raised to above 78%, while the utilization of coal-fired power generation in traditional thermal power plants is relatively high. Only about 35% of the thermal power plants that use coal as fuel for power generation and heat supply have an energy efficiency of only about 45%. Compared with conventional coal-fired power plants on the same scale, nitrogen oxide emissions from energy stations are reduced by 80%, emissions of sulfur dioxide and atmospheric suspended particulates are almost zero, and CO2 emissions are reduced by 70% compared with conventional coal-fired power plants on the same scale.

The third is to vigorously promote scientific and technological innovation and use new technologies to improve the level of energy conservation and emission reduction. Huadian Group has carried out a series of scientific research projects in recent years, which has greatly improved the level of energy-saving and emission-reduction technologies. Such as the launch of a state-level innovative pilot enterprise construction, undertook the national "973" plan - efficient large-scale solar thermal power generation project research. At present, the company has 322 patents, including 91 invention patents, and it is in the same industry leading position.