Since the end of 2020, wind power has added 190 million kilowatts of installed capacity, and solar power has added 470 million kilowatts of installed capacity. On August 23, the National Energy Administration released national power industry statistics from January to July: By the end of July 2024, the country's cumulative installed capacity will be about 3.1 billion kilowatts, of which solar power installed capacity will be about 740 million kilowatts and wind power installed capacity will be about 470 million kilowatts. The total installed capacity of wind power and solar power will reach 1.21 billion kilowatts, achieving the commitment of 1.2 billion kilowatts of total wind power and solar power installed capacity in 2030 about six and a half years ahead of schedule. In September 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping stated in his speech at the general debate of the United Nations General Assembly that "China will strive to peak its carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and strive to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060." At the Climate Ambition Summit in December 2020, President Xi Jinping announced that by 2030, China's total installed capacity of wind power and solar power generation will reach more than 1.2 billion kilowatts. When China proposed the 2030 wind power and solar power installed capacity targets, the wind power and solar power installed capacity were 280 million kilowatts and 250 million kilowatts respectively, with a total installed capacity of about 530 million kilowatts. In just about three and a half years, China has completed the promised installed capacity growth, adding about 680 million kilowatts of wind power and solar power installed capacity. After China made its dual carbon commitment, solar power generation, represented by photovoltaic power generation, has exploded. Since the end of 2020, China's solar power installed capacity has increased by 490 million kilowatts, nearly doubling. Power generation central enterprises are the main force in development. Under the trend of low-carbon transformation of electricity, they have proposed new new energy installed capacity targets. The explosive demand comes not only from China, but also from the world, which has enabled the upstream photovoltaic industry to enjoy a brilliant boom cycle from 2020 to 2022. During this period, upstream production capacity continued to expand, and many companies from other industries crossed over to photovoltaics. Starting in 2023, the dramatic increase in production capacity gradually reversed the supply and demand situation in the photovoltaic market, with production capacity clearly exceeding demand, and the upstream industry began to enter a cycle of restructuring and clearance. The growth rate of wind power installed capacity was relatively stable, increasing from 280 million kilowatts at the end of 2020 to 470 million kilowatts in July 2024, an increase of about 190 million kilowatts. In the first ten years of the development of China's new energy industry, the development cost of wind power was lower than that of photovoltaics. After 2020, with the continuous advancement of photovoltaic power generation technology, especially the rapid switch of battery technology from P-type to N-type in the past two years, the power generation efficiency has been improved and the cost has been reduced. In addition to the continuous expansion of production capacity, the cost of upstream materials such as silicon wafers and silicon materials has continued to decline. In addition to cost, the shorter development cycle of photovoltaics compared to wind power, as well as the outbreak of flexible distributed photovoltaics, have made photovoltaic installations grow faster than wind power. With the outbreak of wind power and solar power installations, China's power structure is also changing rapidly. At the end of 2020, the total installed capacity of wind power and solar power accounted for about 24%. In just three and a half years, the proportion of wind power and solar power installed capacity has reached about 39%. According to data released by the China Electricity Council, in June 2024, the total installed capacity of wind power and solar power will reach 1.18 billion kilowatts, and the installed capacity of coal-fired power will be 1.17 billion kilowatts. China's wind power and solar power installed capacity will historically exceed coal-fired power. However, due to the characteristics of new energy relying on the weather, its power generation utilization rate is not high, and the growth of wind power and solar power installed capacity is not synchronized with the growth of power generation. According to the "2023-2024 National Electricity Supply and Demand Situation Analysis and Forecast Report" released by the China Electricity Council, in 2023, among the power generation equipment of 6,000 kilowatts and above in the country, the number of grid-connected wind power utilization hours is 2,225 hours, and the number of grid-connected solar power generation utilization hours is 1,286 hours, which are significantly lower than the 4,685 hours of coal-fired power, 7,670 hours of nuclear power and 3,423 hours of conventional hydropower. And due to the characteristics of natural weather "extremely hot without wind, extremely cold without light", at the peak of power demand load, it is often the time when new energy cannot generate electricity. In addition, China's new energy is mainly built in the northwest, northeast and southwest regions, far away from the eastern load center. The national installed power capacity has exceeded 3.1 billion kilowatts, and the peak load exceeds 1.4 billion kilowatts. Therefore, although the installed capacity of 3.1 billion kilowatts is far greater than the peak load, the fluctuations and uncertainties brought about by the expansion of the proportion of new energy installed capacity have led to mismatches between supply and demand in time and space, and it is impossible to ensure the power supply of all regions at all times. The overall tight balance and the tight situation in some regions are the norm for the power supply and demand situation in the past two years. After the installed capacity ratio increases, the consumption of new energy is facing new challenges, especially in the northwestern provinces with a high installed capacity ratio and mainly exporting. It is becoming more and more difficult to ensure the 95% consumption red line. How to balance the clean and low-carbon benefits of new energy, promote the low-carbon transformation of the power system, and at the same time take into account the safety and economic operation of the power system is becoming a new problem facing China's power industry. The competent authorities are trying to guide the industry to deal with new problems in many aspects. At the end of May 2024, the National Energy Administration issued the "Notice on Doing a Good Job in New Energy Consumption and Ensuring the High-quality Development of New Energy", planning a number of new energy supporting power grid projects, proposing to strengthen the construction of system regulation capabilities, improve the performance of new energy grid connection, strengthen the power grid resource allocation capabilities, give play to the role of the power market mechanism, and relax the target of new energy utilization rate to 90% in resource-rich areas. At the end of July 2024, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration, and the National Data Bureau jointly issued the "Action Plan for Accelerating the Construction of a New Power System (2024-2027)", proposing the basic principles of "clean and low-carbon, safe and sufficient, economic and efficient, supply and demand coordination, and flexible and intelligent". It is planned to carry out 9 special actions in the next three years, including those directly related to the development of new energy, including the power system stability guarantee action, the large-scale high-proportion new energy transmission action, the distribution network high-quality development action, the intelligent dispatching system construction action, the new energy system friendly performance improvement action, the power system regulation capacity optimization action and the demand-side coordination capacity improvement action. The "Plan" hopes to improve the power grid's ability to absorb, configure, and regulate clean energy.
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