Since the second half of 2021, China has experienced a serious round of "electricity shortage". Power rationing in some regions has aroused widespread social concern. In essence, it is a power rationing crisis caused by the combination of factors such as the failure of coal-electricity market and uncertainty of new energy output under the low-carbon transition environment. It reveals the deep-seated contradictions that need to be solved in the current electric power energy reform and the challenges faced by the construction of electric power market.
The safe and reliable supply of electric power is facing unprecedented challenges
The high proportion of new energy power system requires flexible adjustment ability and reliability capacity improvement
According to the calculation of the International Energy Agency and other institutions, when the proportion of fluctuating new energy power exceeds 15%, the power system needs to greatly improve its flexibility and adjustment ability, otherwise the power system may face challenges. In the future, as the proportion of installed new energy increases year by year, the safe operation of the power system under extreme weather conditions will face more challenges: in the short-term operation, it needs rapid and flexible adjustment ability; in the long-term sustainable development, it needs to motivate traditional power sources and various resources to provide reliable capacity support.
Facing up to the value of flexibility and reliability of coal power units, promote the transformation of coal power from the main body of electricity to flexible resources
Coal power unit from the traditional quantity of electricity, to equal power quantity, and to the system service transformation, is not only to achieve carbon peak, carbon neutrality, but also to ensure safety and reliability requirements. It is very important to realize and give full play to the value of coal generating units for peak frequency regulation and seasonal regulation of China's power system to ensure power security and sustainability. In the long run, to stimulate investment in coal unit such as power supply reliability, not only needs scientific planning, rational layout, requiring more market-oriented institutional reform, all kinds of resources including coal unit reasonable market incentives, to ensure its reasonable investment returns, to ensure the safety of electric power in the process of energy transformation long-term sustainable supply.
Correctly understand the relationship between power market and power supply guarantee
Power supply guarantee is the constraint but not the target of power market construction. Good market design will certainly benefit power supply guarantee
The safe and stable operation of power system can be regarded as the hard constraint of power market construction, and can be considered as "constraint" in the actual operation of power market. There is no essential difference between planned system and market system in the reservation of safety and reliability margin of power system. Both can rely on the expected setting of safety and reliability standard of power system operation. Therefore, power market construction and power supply guarantee are not "either/or", good market design will not affect the power supply guarantee, on the contrary, the time-sharing price signal reflecting supply and demand in the spot market is conducive to encouraging the unit supply guarantee. With spot market for commissioning in 2021 in shanxi as an example, the country's electricity supply tight, during thermal coal prices high, spot prices are high in shanxi touch the market price of 1.5 yuan/KWH, effective incentive for thermal power enterprises to purchase high quality coal peak power, and did not occur elsewhere in similar coal unit was forced to non stop, and so on and so forth, to reduce the risk of orderly power. Spot market price signals excitation generator protection time-sharing power supply of the reason is that electricity spot market CLP retain for the economic profit and loss of compaction to each generator main body, not generating cash for medium and long-term contract at once in the lack of power, will require in the spot market price to buy electricity is for hair, on the contrary if the secondary power, you can obtain much higher than the fuel cost of high yield, Thus, the transformation from "I want to generate electricity" under the planning system to "I want to generate electricity" in the market has been realized.
It is a basic requirement for the construction of electric power market that the price should be decided by the market, which plays an important role in ensuring the supply of electric power
On October 12, 2021, the State issued the Notice on Further Deepening the Market-oriented Reform of The On-Grid Price of Coal-fired Power Generation (referred to as "1439 Document"), marking an important milestone in the market-oriented reform of electricity price. Historical experience shows that the negative impact of electricity price increases within a reasonable range is far less than the huge losses caused by power shortages to the national economy. Is committed to the electricity price reform through market-oriented means to promote each link market price linkage, reflect the cost and supply and demand, especially to conduct electricity cost to the user, the mechanism of side to avoid excess low open market, the shortage of high period closed market, avoid the user according to the electricity price rise and fall, in the case of random switching between plan and market, The habitual psychology of "electricity price can only fall but not rise" has been changed, and the cost of energy transformation has been channelled out. Meanwhile, the regulation of thermal coal supply and price has been strengthened, which has played a positive role in alleviating the tight situation of electricity supply and demand. In the future, we should unswervingly take the road of marketization, and give the power of price rise and fall back to the market.
The key problem that current electric power market construction faces
Strengthen the overall design of the power market function and subdivide the power market value
Under the construction environment of new power system, the large-scale development of new energy requires conventional energy to provide the moment of inertia and regulation capacity for the power grid. However, with the gradual compression of conventional power supply, it is difficult to survive only on electricity energy income, and a single electricity energy market is difficult to adapt to the requirements of a high proportion of new energy systems. Therefore, it is necessary to support the design of other markets, namely the market structure of "electricity energy market + auxiliary service market + capacity cost mechanism". In the short term, we should speed up the construction of the spot electricity market, reasonably determine the market price limit, improve the market for auxiliary services such as frequency modulation and stand-by, establish an electricity market in which both power generation and users participate, give full play to the flexible adjustment value of all kinds of resources, and promote the "interaction between source networks and storage". From the perspective of long-term sustainable development, it is an important measure to ensure long-term reliable supply of electricity to establish a capacity cost recovery mechanism to ensure that some power sources, as long-term reliable capacity and low generation hours, are still willing to be backed up all year round.
We should properly handle the relationship between the market and the government, strengthen market oversight, and reduce unreasonable administrative intervention
The core of power system reform is to deal with the relationship between government and market. An ideal approach is to unbind the hand of the market as far as possible in the initial distribution of power resources, to achieve fair, open and effective competition, improve the efficiency of optimal allocation of resources, and promote the overall larger social welfare; The role of the government's hand mainly depends on effective supervision to ensure the good operation of the market, deal with market failure, and give consideration to fairness through secondary distribution. However, government supervision should be based on respecting the logic of the market, that is, on the basis of giving full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, the government should play a better role. At present, in the process of power market construction, there are still some situations such as "price restriction" and "special market" through administrative means to allocate cheap electricity to specific enterprises. In essence, planning means are above the market and inevitably cause interference to the market. To perfect the modern electric power market supervision system, reduce unreasonable administrative intervention, promote the standardization and transparency of electric power trading organization, at the same time, aiming at the market failure, improve the government's governance ability, is an important means to better play the role of the government under the market environment.
We will make market operations more standardized and transparent and boost confidence in market development
The market is not omnipotent, and emergency control measures and means are necessary, which is the right of market operators to stick to the bottom line of security of supply. Once a big power failure occurs, it may bring huge losses to the society and economy. Therefore, market operation institutions are allowed to intervene in the market and make emergency dispatching in case of emergency in power system operation. Even in the more mature foreign power market, it still retains the emergency control measures and means of market operators. Emergency scheduling itself, however, belong to market means, if the electric power market is still in operation, in order to maintain the safe operation of the system, and emergency measures will run to the market form the intervention, affect the market price, in order to ensure fair, trigger condition, the method of payment of emergency control measures, should be clear in advance, to avoid later can not reach an agreement on the method of payment. In addition, in view of the multiple roles of power grid enterprises in the market, such as power market operator, power transmission party, power purchase party and power sales company, market operation institutions should be promoted to operate independently, market information disclosure should be strengthened, and the transparency of market operation should be improved, which is crucial to boost the confidence of all parties in market construction.
Wuhan Xinsengneng is a professional power testing equipment manufacturer. We pay close attention to the development and trends of power grid related industries. For more information, visit wuhan Xinsengneng's official website: www.whxsn.com
