On February 18th, multiple departments including the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the 'Notice on Printing and Distributing Several Policies to Promote the Stable Growth of Industrial Economy', proposing to accelerate the implementation of special actions for big data center construction, carry out the 'East Data West Computing' project, and speed up the construction of eight national-level data center hubs in the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Behind the 'East Data West Computing' is the upgrade of grid computing power. What changes are predicted for grid computing power? Some experts believe that for the power transportation required by 'East Data West Computing', the capacity of UHV will need to increase by nearly 70% based on the original plan. It seems that this plan may be implemented ahead of schedule. What's your opinion on this? In addition to grid computing power and UHV construction, what other related transformations will the grid undergo for 'East Data West Computing'? Mr. Xu Biao, Executive Director of Frost & Sullivan's Greater China Region, was interviewed by China Energy News to discusswhat impacts 'East Data West Computing' will have on the grid structure.
China Energy News
On February 18th, multiple departments including the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the 'Notice on Printing and Distributing Several Policies to Promote the Stable Growth of Industrial Economy', proposing to accelerate the implementation of special actions for big data center construction and the 'East Data West Computing' project.
It is reported that China will accelerate the construction of eight national-level data center hubs in the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and has planned ten national data center clusters. 'East Data West Computing' is considered the latest infrastructure project under China's new era pattern after the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, the West-East Gas Pipeline Project, and the West-East Power Transmission Project.
Industry insiders said that within these eight hubs and ten clusters, there is a uniform distribution from east to west, with most areas being the first or second batch of pilot areas for spot electricity settlement. As the marketization of electricity progresses to the real-time spot settlement stage, the consumption of new energy, especially cross-provincial and cross-regional resource dispatching, will rely entirely on grid computing power.
Helping to Upgrade Grid Computing Power
Shao Junsong, co-founder of Jiangxing Intelligence, said, 'East Data West Computing' involves handing over the data computing needs of the eastern coastal regions of China to inland data centers for processing. However, some data calculations with strong real-time requirements still need to be processed near where the data is generated. Therefore, in addition to large data centers in the western regions, the state has also planned large data centers in the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
'On this basis, various industry data will be concentrated in these big data centers. Grid data centers will also expand rapidly with the construction of national-level data center hubs, making it more convenient to aggregate business data across different departments of the grid. The improvement in computing power will also guide the manifestation of data value, shifting from traditional departmental business data mining to multi-dimensional analysis across departments and even industries, thereby generating more social and economic value.'
Mr. Xu Biao, Executive Director of Frost & Sullivan's Greater China Region, told reporters that against the backdrop of the launch of this new era national super infrastructure project 'East Data West Computing', how to fully integrate existing grid infrastructure with new digital infrastructure to create a new type of integrated infrastructure that outputs electricity and computing power is key.
He believes that in the future, while ensuring the transmission of electricity, the grid will integrate more fully to support the development needs of computing power. Not only will the computing power of the grid be significantly increased to meet the needs of 'East Data West Computing', but also functions such as distributed production and consumption of electricity, and long-distance large-scale power transmission can load computing resources simultaneously, achieving resource reuse and optimization in space and time. The core hub function of the grid will be further enriched in the era of 'electricity + computing power', and utilization models such as electricity + 5G and external services for power data centers can fully respond to users' dual needs for electricity and computing power, reconstructing the function and value of energy infrastructure.
Triggering a New Round of Grid Investment
In fact, computing power is like electricity in the industrial era, or water conservancy in the agricultural era, and is the core infrastructure for the development of the national economy in the information age. After more than 20 years of development through 'West-East Power Transmission', China has established a grid with the strongest global energy allocation capacity, the most high-voltage transmission lines, and the highest level of safe operation, and is moving forward towards the comprehensive construction of an energy internet.
Shao Junsong proposed that among the eight planned national-level data center hubs, three require electric power input, such as seasonal electric power demand in Chengdu and Chongqing. The power consumption of these data centers will inevitably lead to new demands for power supply capacity, triggering a round of grid investment around data centers.
He believes that under the new power system mainly composed of new energy, given the main layout locations of new energy power stations, the focus of grid investment around data centers must be on the construction of cross-regional transmission grids. UHV will help form point-to-point electric power transmission, which is conducive to maximizing grid investment returns. Therefore, the construction of UHV around national-level data center hubs will inevitably accelerate synchronously with data center construction, forming an interactive and linked effect.
Mr. Xu Biao said that from the historical process of China's infrastructure construction, appropriate advancement is an important approach to high-quality development. Against the backdrop of the country's deep implementation of the digital economy development strategy, both the digital economy and new energy power are key infrastructure areas for appropriate advancement. As an important support for 'fine computing in East Data', UHV, combined with the dual missions of the digital economy and new energy power, is one of the main battlefields for appropriate advance infrastructure construction. It is expected that the construction plans during the '14th Five-Year Plan' period will be accelerated, and to meet the power transportation needs of 'East Data West Computing', UHV needs to increase by nearly 70% based on the original plan.
Promoting Multiple Transformations of the Grid
As is well known, data centers are major electricity consumers. Mr. Shao Junsong believes that achieving 'fine computing in East Data' under the background of building a new power system mainly composed of new energy will inevitably trigger multiple transformations of the grid.
In Shao Junsong's view, first, the spatial transfer of data center types of load will be conducive to the consumption of clean energy in the western regions; second, the construction of supporting renewable energy power stations and energy storage stations around data centers will inevitably trigger a new round of power infrastructure construction; finally, online data center loads have the characteristic of spatial transfer, while offline loads have the characteristic of temporal transfer. Both types of loads can participate in the demand response market. Data center loads also have short-term and medium- to long-term predictability, and can profit from various aspects such as the electricity energy market, capacity market, demand response market, and auxiliary service market. They will inevitably participate as an important force in power market transactions, helping to build a new power system mainly composed of new energy.
Mr. Xu Biao said that with the continuous advancement of the 'East Data West Computing' project and the accelerated construction of eight national-level data center hubs, the electricity demand for data centers will increase significantly. The local consumption scale of renewable energy such as wind and photovoltaic in western provinces will be greatly increased, which will help improve the proportion of green energy used in data centers and contribute to achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals.
Mr. Xu Biao believes that with the continuous advancement of power marketization and gradual real-time spot settlement, the solution to key issues such as new energy consumption and cross-provincial and cross-regional resource dispatching depends on the development of grid computing power. The normalization of power spot operation poses higher requirements for the computing power and system for electricity settlement. 'The smooth progress of the 'East Data West Computing' project cannot be separated from the good market environment shaped by the power marketization reform with the grid as its core foundation.'
*This article is reprinted from China Energy News, authored by Han Yifei, with the original title 'The Hot 'East Data West Computing', What Does It Mean for the Grid Structure?'
