Difficulties in photovoltaic absorption

According to the data released by the State Power Bureau, in the first quarter of 2019, China’s renewable power generation reached 388.5 billion kwh, accounting for 23.2% of the total power generation, during which photovoltaic power generation reached 44 billion kwh. It can be seen from the simple calculation that the photovoltaic power generation accounts for 11.34% of the renewable power generation and 2.63% of the total power generation.

 

 

 

With the increasing installed capacity and power generation capacity every year, why does the booming photovoltaic power generation industry only have such a low proportion?

 

 

 

Grid connection threshold

 

 

 

On July 1, the national power bureau gave the owners of the photovoltaic bidding projects in 2019 the final time to fill in the electricity price, which means that, subsequently, the national power bureau will start the national ranking, and the subsidy catalogue will be published soon.

 

 

 

From the bidding project application area, there are 24 provinces of photovoltaic power stations participating in the bidding. According to the data disclosed by the competent departments of each province and the data provided by some enterprises, the top 3 photovoltaic bidding plans in 2019 are Guizhou, Shanxi and Zhejiang respectively, with plans exceeding 2 GW. In the meantime, Guizhou ranks first with plans to surpass 3 GW. In addition, there are 11 provinces with bidding plan exceeding or close to 1 GW, including Hebei, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Ningxia, etc.

 

 

 

From the current information, the master plan for photovoltaic bidding in 2019 has not reached 30 GW, mainly due to the limited consumption of the grid. Recently, the bidding plans of Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Hebei, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shanxi and other places have been published one after another. It is roughly estimated that the total planning of the above six regions is about 6.5 GW. Guizhou and Jiangxi have become the major provinces of photovoltaic bidding this year, during which Guizhou’s planning is about 3.8 GW, which is the black horse declared this year. Guizhou’s Price Declaration will have an impact on the national bidding results of this year of more than one cent. Jiangxi’s plan to participate in the bidding is close to 4 GW, and only about 1.89 GW will participate in the national bidding due to the limited consumption. Anhui and Henan, which have high hopes, are far less than expected, with a total of about 1 gigawatt. It is understood that Henan’s consumption space is more focused on wind power supply, so its report planning is far lower than expected, which mainly gives the space for distributed project declaration; Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which are also distributed provinces, have bid planning of about 2 GW, in which Jiangsu’s project declaration is particularly tortuous.

 

 

 

Previously, some insiders believed that the declared electricity price would be the main factor affecting the new installation plan of this year. However, from the perspective of practical application, the consumption ability of power grid has become an important threshold for provinces to participate in bidding planning. It is understood that the reported projects in Shanxi Province are 7 GW, the reported projects in Jiangxi Province are 4 GW, and the reported projects in Hebei Province are 3 GW, but after all, more than half of the quota has been cut because of the grid consumption.

 

 

 

It is understood that the first phase of Datong photovoltaic power generation leading base in March this year saw light curtailment for the first time. Ten projects, including Huadian, Chint, Yingli, Jingke, sunshine power, Jingao, cecep, China Merchants new power, CGN, and Guodian investment, all had light curtailment to a certain extent, and the cumulative power curtailment loss is estimated to exceed 4 million kwh.

 

 

 

As we all know, the leader project has always been a national key project. From the competitive location of each region to the competitive optimization of enterprises to the selection of products, the local government must issue policies to ensure the land use, power grid access and power consumption of the leader projects. However, the leader project still has the problem of light and electricity rationing. It can be found that the problem of subsidy is only temporary, the cost is reduced, and the subsidy does not need to be relied on. The real “pain” is the receiving degree of power grid, which is the primary factor limiting the development space of photovoltaic industry.

 

 

 

Death of consumption

 

 

 

According to the information released by the micro signal of the national new power consumption monitoring and early warning center, in the first quarter, under the condition that the state accelerated the promotion of parity on grid and the price adjustment policy was not clear, the newly added grid connected installed capacity of photovoltaic in China was 5.2 million kilowatts, down 46% year on year. By the end of March, the total installed capacity of photovoltaic grid connected in China was 180 million kilowatts, during which the distributed photovoltaic capacity was about 53.4 million kilowatts, accounting for 29.8%. The installed capacity of Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei, Zhejiang, Anhui and Henan provinces exceeded 10 million kilowatts.

 

 

 

According to the report, in the first quarter, 2.83 million kilowatts of new grid connected photovoltaic installed capacity were added in the central and southern regions, accounting for 57% of the total new capacity in China. By the end of March, the total installed capacity of grid connected photovoltaic in the Middle East and South regions will be 80.46 million kilowatts, an increase of 0.6 percentage point to 44.9% compared with that at the end of last year, and the layout will continue to move to the Middle East and South regions.

 

 

 

In December 2018, in order to deal with the problem of clean power consumption more effectively and establish a long-term mechanism to promote the consumption, the national development and Reform Commission and the national power bureau jointly issued the action plan for clean power consumption (2018-2020) (hereinafter referred to as the action plan), formulated the operation policy for clean power consumption, and put forward 28 targeted operation actions in seven categories, resulting in a strong society. Strong response.In accordance with the general operation policy of “achieving remarkable results in clean power consumption in 2018 and basically handling the problem of clean power consumption in 2020”, the action plan scientifically calculates and subdivides the specific policies of wind power, photovoltaic, hydropower, nuclear power and other power varieties year by year. In order to establish a long-term mechanism of clean power consumption and ensure the realization of the consumption policy, the action plan puts forward 28 specific measures from seven aspects: optimization of power development layout, market reform and regulation, macro policy guidance, improvement of grid infrastructure, improvement of power system conditioning ability, innovation of power consumption mode, audit and supervision: first, planning and production of clean power Further optimize the power layout and reasonably control the power development rhythm in terms of progress, orderly clean development of coal power, etc.; accelerate the transformation of power marketization in terms of power medium and long-term trading, cross province shopping mall trading of clean power, spot trading, auxiliary service compensation mechanism, etc., and develop the conditioning function of shopping mall; thirdly, from the renewable power quota criteria, non water renewable power In terms of price policy, clean power generation priority rule, revision of renewable power law and other aspects, macro policy guidance should be strengthened to form a system mechanism conducive to clean power consumption; fourthly, the peak adjustment potential of power supply side should be explored from the aspects of thermal power flexibility transformation, verification of thermal power minimum output and start-up mode, self-contained power plant peak adjustment, renewable power power prediction, etc., so as to comprehensively improve power system regulation. The fifth is to improve the grid infrastructure and give full play to the role of grid resource allocation platform from the perspectives of grid collection and transmission of clean power, trans provincial channel renewable power delivery share, urban and rural power distribution network construction, multiple power joint scheduling, grid operation management, etc.; the sixth is to improve the green consumption mode of clean power, efficient use of renewable power nearby, energy storage technology. Carry out, clean heating in the northern region, demand side response and other perspectives to promote the interaction between source network and load storage, and actively promote the innovation of power consumption mode; seventh, implement the responsibility subject from the perspective of clean power consumption policy audit, information disclosure and submission, supervision and supervision, and improve the level of consumption audit and supervision.

 

 

 

In order to ensure the effective implementation of various measures, the action plan will strengthen the audit of clean power consumption policy, focusing on: scientific calculation of the annual general policy and sub regional policy of clean power consumption; provinces (regions and cities) with serious water, wind and light abandonment conditions and low utilization rate of nuclear power units should formulate a special plan to deal with the problem of clean power consumption in their own regions. ; organize provinces (districts and cities) that have the conditions to accept the consumption of clean power delivered from outside to clarify the regional consumption policy; clarify the operation proportion policy of non water renewable power in the total power in the joint transmission channel of new power and coal power, and implement the annual audit.

 

 

 

Two aspects are involved in the calculation of power limitation. On the one hand, some media now pay more attention to the “double drop” of clean power curtailment rate and power curtailment, but the quantitative power curtailment is related to the installation planning and water use uniformity of clean power. With the continuous expansion of clean power development planning in China, it is certain that the horizontal comparison significance of power curtailment is weakened, and the increase of power curtailment does not necessarily mean that the use level is reduced, so it is not suitable to use power curtailment. The positive value of the quantity as the evaluation target must be considered from the perspective of the utilization rate; on the other hand, the action plan refers to the international advanced level (90% of wind power utilization rate, 95% of photovoltaic power generation utilization rate), and proposes that the national average utilization rate of wind power, photovoltaic utilization rate and water energy utilization rate in 2020 are respectively about 95%, higher than 95% and higher than 95%, reaching the international advanced level. At the same time, because of the gradual expansion of China’s clean power development plan, especially the centralized clean power development area, even if the use level of clean power is controlled within a reasonable scale, the positive amount of limited power generation is also large, which simply leads to speculation and misunderstanding. For this reason, refer to international experience to optimize the calculation caliber of the whole network. For areas and main basins with wind power, photovoltaic and water energy utilization rate higher than 95%, the limited power generation is within a reasonable scale and will not be included in the calculation scale of the national limited power.

 

 

 

Processing foraging

 

 

 

Zhang Junjun, director of the new power center office of the Chinese Academy of electrical Sciences, said that at present, photovoltaic mainly faces three problems at the grid connection level: Grid Connection characteristics, transmission and consumption.

 

 

 

At the top of the list, the grid connection characteristic of photovoltaic is a pure technical problem. From 2007 to 2009, wind power continuously broke out of the grid in large planning, which sounded an alarm for the grid connection of photovoltaic access. In 2012, the State Grid drafted the “technical rules for photovoltaic power station access to the grid” and issued it. Photovoltaic has not experienced any off grid incidents similar to wind power, which also proves that there are technical means to deal with photovoltaic grid connection characteristics.

 

 

 

Second, the problem of transmission is fundamentally a problem of planning. On the one hand, the planning of power grid lags behind the planning of power supply at any time; on the other hand, the construction of power grid lags behind the construction of power supply at any time, so that the planning of power grid and power supply is not synchronized at any time and in space. With the problem of new power transmission highlighted in recent years, the State Grid has built six UHV lines in Northwest China in recent three years to deal with the problem of power transmission. As for the reason why the share of renewable power delivery is low, this is because the new power itself has volatility. From the economic perspective, if only new power is delivered, the available hours of UHV lines will be very low. Although it is a “highway” built to deal with the delivery of new power, it will never only run new power “cars”.