5Since the beginning of the month, electricity load and consumption have continued to climb in several provinces in the south. It is reported that5month22On the same day, the highest load of the Southern Power Grid exceeded 10 GW for the first time this year21000 million kilowatts, ahead of last year35sky. In the face of the continuous growth trend in electricity consumption load, many places have also intensively deployed preparations to cope with peak summer demand. In the capital market, there is a high enthusiasm for investment in the green power sector, and virtual power plants have become a focus of market attention.
China's green energy transformation is accelerating. To ensure overall power supply security, what other new energy system constructions are needed? What roles can digital technology and green finance play in helping develop green energy and promoting enterprises to adopt green and low-carbon production methods? Against the backdrop of tight power supply during peak consumption seasons, virtual power plants have seen an investment boom. What is their development prospect? What value do virtual power plants have for the construction of a unified national electricity market system and market-based trading volumes? What trends are emerging with the market-oriented reform of electricity? Frost & SullivanFrost & SullivanJia Pang, Partner and Managing Director of Frost & Sullivan Greater China, was interviewed by Securities Daily to discuss the above topics.
Securities Daily
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Securities Daily Reporter: China's green energy transformation is accelerating. To ensure overall power supply security, what other new energy system constructions are needed?
To achieve China's development goal of 'carbon neutrality', the country has been vigorously developing green energy transitions in recent years, such as wind power and photovoltaic energy. However, these types of energy are highly dependent on natural resource characteristic indicators, which are characterized by significant intermittency and uncertainty. This can affect the stability of overall power supply, cause mismatches between electricity demand and generation, as well as related issues such as peak shaving and frequency regulation of the power grid, posing certain challenges to the regulation capacity and safety stability of the power system. Therefore, in the process of low-carbon energy transformation, energy security risks will shift from the original primary energy supply risks represented by coal, oil, and gas to power security supply risks.
To cope with the transformation to green energy, our country is actively accelerating the planning and construction of a new energy system, continuously promoting the sustainable development of new energy. The energy consumption structure will transform from a traditional one dominated by coal to one mainly based on wind and solar power, which are clean and green energies. With the rapid growth of green energy such as wind power and photovoltaics, it is not only necessary to strengthen grid construction, enhance the intelligent management and optimal dispatching capabilities of our country's power system, and achieve balanced regulation of the power supply system through reasonable arrangement and coordination of different types of resources to ensure supply-demand matching; at the same time, it is also necessary to actively expand the research and development and application of energy storage technologies to solve the problem of unstable power supply caused by renewable energy fluctuations.
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Securities Daily Reporter: What roles can digital technology and green finance play in helping promote the development of green energy and encouraging enterprises to adopt green and low-carbon production methods?
The combination of digital technology and green finance will jointly enhance enterprises' awareness and concept of low-carbon operations, promoting the development of green energy in China. Firstly, digital technology provides intelligent and efficient solutions for the development of green energy and low-carbon production by enterprises. Through emerging technical means such as artificial intelligence, big data, and the Internet of Things, precise monitoring, prediction, and optimized management of energy production, storage, transmission, and other systems can be achieved. This improves the utilization efficiency of energy in China, helps enterprises identify and improve areas of energy waste and inefficiency, and take effective energy-saving measures.
Secondly, green finance provides financing channels and financial instruments for the sustainable development of green energy projects and enterprises. Financial products such as green bonds, funds, and credit provide corresponding financing channels for green energy projects, attracting investor funds into the green energy sector and promoting the transformation of green energy in China. At the same time, green finance also encourages enterprises to adopt green and low-carbon production methods through incentive mechanisms and reward measures, reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions.
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Securities Daily Reporter: Against the backdrop of tight power supply during the peak consumption season, virtual power plants have seen an investment boom. What is the outlook for their development?
As an energy integration model based on digital technology, virtual power plants integrate various resources such as distributed power sources, controllable loads, and energy storage to form a power source management and dispatching system. They achieve autonomous coordination and optimization control, participate in the operation of the power system and electricity market transactions. Virtual power plants can coordinate different types of power resources, serving as both 'positive power plants' supplying power to the system and 'negative power plants' consuming the electricity stored in the system. They flexibly achieve peak shaving and valley filling, balancing the supply and demand relationship of the power system, ensuring the reliability and stability of power supply.
Since the beginning of summer this year, the simultaneous growth of residential electricity consumption and industrial production has led to rapid expansion of electricity load, causing tight power supply in some areas. Virtual power plants can integrate a large amount of scattered, adjustable electricity loads into the grid dispatching system, achieving effective 'peak shaving and valley filling'; they can also provide frequency regulation, voltage regulation, backup, and other power auxiliary services to enhance grid security. Therefore, during periods of tight power supply and demand, virtual power plants can serve as effective regulatory tools to alleviate power supply shortages and improve the flexibility of the power system.
At present, virtual power plants in China are still in their infancy. With the advancement of the construction of new power systems, virtual power plants are expected to experience rapid development. It is anticipated that driven by multiple factors such as policy promotion, growing actual demand, and the development of market-oriented electricity, virtual power plants capable of aggregating, optimizing, and coordinating massive distributed resources will experience explosive growth.
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Securities Daily Reporter: What value does the virtual power plant hold for the construction of a unified national electricity market system and market-oriented trading volumes? With the reform of electricity marketization, what trends are emerging?
As one of the tools to enhance the regulation capacity of power systems, virtual power plants can achieve distributed power aggregation across regions. They can strengthen the coordinated interaction between the demand side and supply side in the electricity market, play an important role in solving the problem of increasing peak load scale and promoting the consumption of new energy power, help establish a unified national electricity market system, and improve the flexibility and reliability of power systems.
With the integration of resources by virtual power plants, smaller-scale, highly dispersed distributed power sources, controllable loads, energy storage, charging piles, etc., can participate in market-based electricity trading. Through systematic monitoring, optimization, forecasting, and comprehensive management, these elements enhance the stability and efficiency of energy output. While improving their demand response and participation in power auxiliary services, they reduce the impact on the stable operation of the power grid. In addition, the development of the virtual power plant industry has attracted players from multiple fields, including power grid informatization enterprises, smart energy, andITDomain solution providers, enterprises related to the new energy or new energy storage industry chain, jointly promote the development of the electricity trading market.
At present, China is vigorously promoting the market-oriented reform of electricity. Virtual power plants are gradually transitioning from the model of being invited by the government or dispatching departments, with load aggregators responding, to an open electricity trading market. This will involve more unified standards and interfaces. At this stage, the resources aggregated by virtual power plant pilots in China are concentrated on the load side. With the increasing maturity of the electricity trading mechanism and the gradual improvement of China's distribution network construction, distributed photovoltaics and other resources will be connected to aggregation, realizing the transformation from 'load-based' virtual power plants to 'integrated' virtual power plants. At the same time, virtual power plants will also develop from pilot demonstration stages to platform-based business models, comprehensively enhancing their participation in the electricity trading market.
*This interview was published in Securities Daily, with reporter Guo Jichuan. Original title is "The Multiple locations are intensively deploying preparations to welcome the peak summer season The industry anticipates multiple measures to support the development of virtual power plants >> (Click on "Read the Original Article" at the end of the text to read the full report).
