Loose supply and demand create opportunities for power reform

Since the beginning of this year, the growth rate of electricity consumption in China has slowed down, and electricity supply and demand have generally been balanced from the past into the overall loose pattern. The overall ease of supply and demand of electricity has created a good opportunity for deepening the reform of the power system. In November last year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly issued six supporting documents for power system reform. The issuance of this series of documents indicates that the deepening of China's power system reform has entered a practical stage of operation.

The monitoring results of the China Business Climate Index report show that in the fourth quarter of 2015, the economic sentiment index of the China Energy Industry was 97.8, which was a 0.2 point increase from the previous quarter; the warning index was 70.8, which was 4.1 points higher than the previous quarter, and was operating on a biased basis for 8 consecutive quarters. Cold "light blue light area".

In general, in the first and second quarters of 2015, although the economic sentiment index of the China Power Industry suffered a downward trend due to the increasing pressure from the downward pressure on the macro economy, since the second half of the year, the economic prosperity of the power industry has increased, and the power industry has been increasing for the whole year. The overall operation was stable.

The stable operation of the electric power industry is inextricably linked to the overall easing of the electricity supply and demand situation in the country. Since the beginning of this year, the growth rate of electricity consumption in China has slowed down, electricity supply and demand have generally been balanced from the past into the overall loose pattern, and excess supply capacity has emerged in some regions.

According to the data, from January to November, the power generation capacity of the above-scale power plants nationwide was 512.57 billion kWh, an increase of 0.1% year-on-year, and the growth rate was down 3.8 percentage points year-on-year. Among them, wind power generation above designated size increased by 16.4% year-on-year, 3.7 percentage points faster than in the first three quarters; nuclear power generation increased by 29.8% year-on-year, 2.6 percentage points slower than in the first three quarters; hydropower generation increased by 3.6% year-on-year, more than the previous three The quarterly increase was 0.1 percentage points; thermal power generation decreased by 2.4% year-on-year, a decrease of 0.2% over the first three quarters.

From the perspective of electricity consumption, from January to November, the country’s total social power consumption was 5.0493 trillion kWh, an increase of 0.7% year-on-year, and the growth rate was down by 3.0 percentage points year-on-year. Among them, industrial electricity consumption decreased by 1.1% year-on-year, the growth rate slowed down by 4.8 percentage points, accounting for 70.7% of the total electricity consumption in the society, and contributed to -107.9% of the growth in electricity consumption of the entire society.

The overall ease of power supply and demand has also created a very favorable opportunity for deepening the reform of the power system. In November 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly issued six supporting documents for the reform of the power system to further advance the implementation of the power system reform. The issuance of this series of documents indicates that the deepening of China's power system reform has entered a practical stage of operation.

On the whole, the six supporting documents firmly grasp the direction of market-oriented reform, promote market development, encourage fair competition, and give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation; not only with the new round of electricity reform program “three releases, one The overall thinking of "independent and triple-strengthening" is highly consistent, and it has also positively responded to the social concerns of orderly liberalization of competitive business in the electric power sector; it not only restores the commodity attributes of electric power, but also emphasizes the supporting role of electric power products in support of economic and social development. .

According to the idea of ​​“keeping the middle and letting go of both ends”, this power system reform will gradually change the electricity supply model in order to reduce the electricity consumption plan and introduce market competition mechanisms on the generation side and the electricity side. In the final analysis, this round of power system reform is to play the role of “visible hand” and “invisible hand” at the same time, promote the optimal allocation of power resources, and form an efficient new mechanism for power operation.

In a sense, this round of power system reform has concentrated on the key areas and weaknesses in the operation of China's power industry, which is a remodeling of China's existing power system and the restructuring of the market order. This will have a profound impact on the operation of the power industry. Among them, there are several areas that deserve special attention.

The first is the power grid construction. According to experts’ predictions, under the framework of the new power system, there will be a wave of investment and innovation in the construction of transmission and distribution networks. In the first 11 months of 2015, the nation's power grid project completed a total investment of 385.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.3%. The future competition in the power transmission and distribution market will be more complete, and more social capital will participate in the construction of the distribution network. This will help adjust the power structure and increase the efficiency of resource utilization.

Followed by clean renewable energy generation. The "Implementation Opinions on Orderly Development and Utilization of Electricity Utilization Plan" further clarified that the establishment of a priority generation system ensures the priority access of clean energy generation and regulating power generation to the Internet, which means that the long-term obsession with the development of clean renewable energy is "abandonment of water and abandonment of wind." The phenomenon of "abandoning the light" is expected to be better resolved. Clean renewable energy will usher in a long-term stable and favorable development cycle.

In addition, on the sales side. Pursuant to the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Reform of the Power Sale Side," the power sales business will be open to social capital, and many ways will be cultivated for the main players in the market for power sales. This means that a market ecosystem with large market size will be broken, and users will have more choices, which can also urge the improvement of the quality of electricity sales services and the level of energy users. Ordinary power users will not only obtain higher quality power services, but will also directly benefit from the integration of emerging technologies such as the Internet, distributed generation, and smart grid.

In short, with the deepening of the reform of the power system, the pace of restructuring the power market system will be further accelerated, and the market system will be accelerated with the principle of "depending on law, separation of government and enterprises, standardized subject, fair trade, reasonable price, and effective supervision." This will not only benefit the healthy development of the power industry itself, but also help companies in other industries to "reduce costs."