Global energy transformation: China’s practice and vision

In 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward a new energy security strategy for the benefit of China with global implications, charting the course for a future of clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system. China’s power and energy industry is vigorously implementing this strategy. Relentless efforts have been made to promote changes in terms of quality, efficiency, and growth drivers; and to constantly accelerate the pace of energy transformation. Positive progress has been made, showing the following characteristics and trends:

1. Clean energy is becoming the leading source of energy supply

China is stepping up its efforts to adjust the energy mix while improving the quality and efficiency of its energy supply. It will endeavor to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20%, and aims for non-fossil fuels to account for half of the total power generation by 2030. In 2018, clean energy accounted for 40.8% of China’s installed power generation capacity, and 30.4% of its overall power generation capacity. The clean utilization of coal has been greatly promoted and the proportion of coal used for power generation is continuously increasing. The efficiency of coal power generation and the index of energy conservation and environmental protection have reached a world class level; the total capacity of the upgraded coal power generators with ultra-low emission in China has reached more than 700 GW.

2. The energy consumption structure is becoming electricity-centric

China strives to promote electricity substitution in final energy consumption, and it is targeted to have the share of electric power to the overall end user energy consumption by 20% in 2020. In recent years, the proportion has been on the rise, from 22.9% in 2015 to 25.5% in 2018, with an average annual increase of nearly 0.87 percentage points. In the first three quarters of this year, China’s accumulative substitution of electric power has reached 160 TWh, an increase of more than 30% year-on-year, maintaining a relatively rapid growth trend. It is expected that electric power will reach about 30% in China’s final energy consumption by 2030 and exceed 47% by 2050.

3. Rapid innovation in energy technologies

China insists on driving the energy revolution through technological innovation. The core technologies of UHV power transmission have been successfully developed, leading the world’s power grid technology. It is the first in the world to establish an ultra-high voltage transmission technology framework, which has contributed significantly to developing relevant IEC standards. Major breakthroughs have been made in smart grid, large power grid control, flexible power transmission and other key technologies. A large number of key technologies in the power field, such as clean coal power generation, hydro power and advanced nuclear power, have been successfully developed.

4. A more efficient energy governance system

China makes all-around efforts to promote mechanism reform in the field of energy and power industry. The energy market has a decisive role in resource allocation and the government has a strong role to build a unified, efficient, and flexible power market. Much work has been done to improve the energy pricing mechanism and to foster a modern energy governance system. In 2018, the market-oriented trading power accounted for nearly 40% of the total electricity sales.

5. International energy cooperation is being promoted in a comprehensive way

China is committed to building a global energy community with a shared future and creating an international energy cooperation system based on openness and mutual benefits. Focusing on the “Belt and Road” initiative, China strengthens international cooperation on production capacity, energy infrastructure interconnection, and international exchange on energy technology. The role of standards in promoting international cooperation on energy is highlighted. In close collaboration with international standards development organizations such as IEC and IEEE, China is actively involved and takeing on more responsibilities in the development of international standards. In the power field, five new technical committees have been set up in IEC, contributing China’s solution to the international standardization work.

As the world’s largest energy producer and consumer, China has adopted a new strategy to enable a green, healthy and sustainable development of power and energy. The tremendous efforts and tangible contributions China has made are of great significance to the world’s energy transformation. Combining China’s practice and analysis on the current global energy development, some conclusions can be made as follows:

• Firstly, “re-electrification” is the key path to promote energy transformation. Driving the revolution in energy production and consumption is the fundamental path for energy transformation, and “re-electrification” is the revolution in energy production and consumption. For production, “re-electrification” means not only the large-scale development and utilization of renewable energy such as wind power and solar power, but also the clean and efficient use of fossil energy. For consumption, “re-electrification” - or “renewal” - means the unremitting efforts to replace fossil energy with electric power, and significantly increase the proportion of power energy in the terminal energy consumption. One of the most typical examples is the rapid development of electric vehicles. According to the forecast of International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the proportion of electricity in the global end user energy consumption will increase from the current 20% to nearly 45% by 20501. “Re-electrification” is gradually “accelerating” its pace, and the future of a better society will surely be highly electrified.

• Secondly, digitalization is the power engine that drives the “re-electrification” to realize energy transformation. With the surging development of artificial intelligence, Internet of things, block chains, 5G, and other new generations of information technology, digital technology has been applied in every walk of life, and the digital development of traditional industries has become an inevitable trend. In the field of energy and power, digitalization brings greater opportunities for the development of renewable energy and power. As it is forecast by IRENA, the share of renewable energy in the global power generation is expected to rise from the current 26% to 85 % by 2050, in which 60% will from intermittent power sources, such as solar and wind power ­^[1]. The increased use of renewable energy calls for a more refined power system to allocate resources. The application of digital technology in power systems will greatly enhance overall flexibility and support large-scale development and utilization of renewable energy, thus speeding up the process of “re-electrification”.

• Thirdly, standardization is the back-bone of “re-electrification” to achieve energy transformation. As a universal language, international standards are the “catalyst” of technological innovation. With the further promotion of energy transformation and continuous energy technology progress, it is necessary to play an active role in standardization. Standardization is facilitating technological progress in a way that improves the transformation efficiency of renewable energy and the clean use of fossil energy, promoting the interconnection and efficient coupling throughout power systems, and providing technical support for “re-electrification”. Additionally, strengthening cooperation in international standards also helps promote exchange and sharing of international technology, eliminating technical barriers, and jointly solving the problems in energy transformation. In a word, without standardization, global energy transformation cannot be successful.

• Fourthly, the next generation power system is an important carrier for “re-electrification” to realize energy transformation. With the further development of “re-electrification” and the deep integration of digitization and the traditional industries, the power system is facing many important issues, such as large-scale grid integration of renewable energy, long-distance power transmission and increasing power security requirements, thereby it is imperative to speed up the construction of a new power generation systems that are extensively interconnected, intelligent, flexible, secure, and open. In China, the new power generation systems have played its important role in energy transformation. UHV power grid has transmitted clean energy in the north, and west regions to the east region, with the cumulative power transmission reaching the TWh level; the flexible DC transmission technology has provided technical support for large-scale offshore wind power grid connection; the intelligent energy system composed of distributed energy, intelligent micro-grid and terminal intelligent service has provided solutions for the construction of intelligent parks. In the future, the new power generation systems will better promote the two-way flow of energy information and realize the flexible convergence of various resources.

In summary, the key to promote global energy transformation is to take re-electrification as the path, digitization as the drive, standardization as the basis, and next generation power system as the carrier to achieve the sustainable development of global power and energy.

About Dr. Yinbiao Shu

President of International Electrotechnical Commission
Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering
Chairman of China Huaneng Group Co., Ltd.   
President of Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering

Dr. Shu holds a PhD in Electric Engineering and Automation from Wuhan University and is a Senior Engineer (professor level). He is President of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering (CSEE). He is also Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE). He has served as Chairman of China Huaneng Group Co., Ltd. since 2018. He had successively served as Vice President, President, and Chairman of State Grid Corporation of China. Before that, he had served as President of State Power Construction Company, and as Chief Engineer of State Power Dispatching and Communication Center.

Dr. Shu is also Member of the Chinese National Energy Expert Advisory Committee and Member of the National 13th Five-Year Plan Energy Coordination Leading Group. Since 1982, he has been engaged in research and development such as power grid dispatching and operation, power grid development and planning, research and construction of ultra-high voltage power transmission and smart grid, renewable energy development, and international operation, etc., with rich theoretical knowledge and practical experiences.