Liu Qi, deputy director of the National Energy Administration, said at the launch meeting of wind power grid access and market consumption research held in Beijing recently that the National Energy Administration will spend half a year to carry out wind power development planning, market consumption and transmission planning research in 11 provinces (regions) across the country, set rigid constraint indicators, highlight the target of non-hydropower renewable energy power proportion, and effectively solve the transmission and market consumption problems of 90 million kilowatts of wind power in 2015 and 150 million kilowatts in 2020.

Since the newly revised "Renewable Energy Law" was officially implemented on April 1, the industry has been looking forward to the introduction of supporting implementation rules of the new law. The National Energy Administration has begun to plan to solve the problems of wind power grid connection and market consumption, which is generally considered to be a powerful measure to implement the new law.

Using power generation quota indicators to help grid connection

Liu Qi pointed out at the above meeting that when the power grid absorbs renewable energy, it is necessary to determine the total proportion of renewable energy power and the proportion of non-hydropower renewable energy power. These are allocated to each power grid company based on the expected renewable energy power generation corresponding to the renewable energy development plan in the service area and the technically feasible capacity of the region to absorb renewable energy power.

Previously, relevant people disclosed to the media that a "Renewable Energy Power Generation Quota Index Management Measures" aimed at promoting the renewable energy power generation proportion target is currently being formulated. Its content is to constrain power grid companies through renewable energy power generation quota indicators, considering the actual power generation as the benchmark, and stipulate that the obligor shall stipulate a fixed proportion or fixed amount of renewable energy power generation in the total amount of its total power.

In this regard, Shi Lishan, deputy director of the New Energy and Renewable Energy Department of the National Energy Administration, told the reporter of China Energy News at the "First Quarter Energy Economic Operation Analysis Meeting" held at the end of April that the newly revised "Renewable Energy Law" clearly stipulates: "The energy department of the State Council, together with the national power regulatory agency and the financial department of the State Council, shall determine the proportion of renewable energy power generation to be achieved in the planning period in accordance with the national renewable energy development and utilization plan, and formulate specific measures for power grid companies to give priority to dispatching and fully purchase renewable energy power generation."

Let the full guaranteed purchase system be truly implemented

Regarding a series of recent policy trends related to the implementation of the new "Renewable Energy Law", Wang Zhongying, deputy director of the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, said in an interview with the reporter of China Energy News that the old "Renewable Energy Law" put forward the requirement for power grid companies to fully purchase as "power grid companies shall sign grid connection agreements with renewable energy power generation companies that have obtained administrative licenses or submitted for filing in accordance with the law, fully purchase the grid-connected electricity of renewable energy grid-connected power generation projects within the coverage of their power grids, and provide grid-connected services for renewable energy power generation." However, when the local power grid is unable to digest more renewable energy power or has reached saturation, full purchase will become an empty talk and cannot be fulfilled.

"For wind power generation, the current situation is that the power load is low in places with good wind conditions, and the local wind power consumption capacity has been close to saturation, while the wind power received by areas with large power consumption and high power load is often "not enough", and this contradiction is very prominent." Wang Zhongying pointed out that in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where the wind power development situation is the best, its wind power load has accounted for 20% of the total power load in the region. If it is required to digest it by itself, wind power can only stop moving forward.

Inner Mongolia Power Grid Company is an independent accounting company and is not under the jurisdiction of State Grid Corporation. In this case, if the principle of "power grid companies only accept renewable energy power generation within their coverage area" is followed, a large amount of wind power in Inner Mongolia cannot be delivered, and in extreme cases, wind farms will be forced to limit power. Therefore, Wang Zhongying believes that in addition to stipulating the quota indicators for absorbing renewable energy power generation, power grid companies should also introduce policies to encourage local consumption in some areas with rapid wind power development and promote cross-provincial transmission of wind power. "The rapid development of wind power in Denmark and Germany in Europe is due to the fact that the power grids between European countries can achieve cross-border transmission, which has better solved the problem of cross-border transmission benefit distribution and power grid supervision. Why can't we achieve cross-provincial transmission interconnection between domestic power grids?" Wang Zhongying said that in order to support the grid connection of renewable energy power generation, the most important thing to do now is to take necessary policy measures to form a benefit distribution mechanism of "cross-provincial transmission" to ensure the grid connection of renewable energy power generation.

In this regard, Liu Qi said that one of the next work focuses is to scientifically determine the scope of renewable energy power consumption. In terms of wind power consumption, it is necessary to reasonably grasp the principle of combining "power consumption nearby and expanding the scope to improve consumption capacity". Provincial government departments must approve wind power projects under the premise of national unified planning, and in principle, the scope of consumption is limited to the provincial power grid; the national energy department will uniformly organize the construction of large-scale wind power bases, and the power that exceeds the consumption capacity of the provincial power grid will be consumed in the regional power grid.

The development fund is good, but the amount needs to be increased

The newly revised "Renewable Energy Law" changed the original "special funds for renewable energy development established by the national finance" to "renewable energy development fund established by the national finance". Wang Zhongying pointed out that when the electricity price surcharges previously collected to support renewable energy power generation projects were allocated and used, some economically developed provinces have vigorously developed renewable energy power generation projects in recent years and need a lot of subsidy funds. In the context of collecting electricity price surcharges nationwide, the poor provinces that originally needed financial support often flowed to developed and wealthy provinces because they did not have renewable energy power generation projects. This has led to the strange phenomenon of "poor provinces subsidizing rich provinces". Therefore, the state has established a renewable energy development fund and proposed to provide support for renewable energy power generation projects in combination with special fiscal funds on the basis of collecting electricity price surcharges, which is a huge progress.

It is said that the Ministry of Finance has just completed the draft of the "Renewable Energy Special Fund Management Measures" for comments and is currently soliciting opinions from relevant departments. In this regard, Wang Zhongying said that there are still issues that need to be clarified in the fund management measures. He pointed out that according to the current 4 cents of renewable energy electricity price surcharges collected by the state, the total amount of this fund is about 10 billion yuan per year. This figure is measured by the goal of renewable energy accounting for 15% of primary energy consumption by 2020, and the collection standard of 4 cents needs to be improved. He suggested that the amount of special fiscal funds can also be considered to be increased.