[CCTV Review] The ＂Phase I＂ of the 100 billion wind power project is on display, and the ＂Phase II＂ is still under construction. Who is to blame for this strange thing？

What happened to the Three Gorges on the Road?

The ancient poem "and the wind, that has come a thousand miles, beats at the Jade Pass battlements" refers to Jiuquan, Gansu. In order to make use of these abundant power resources, the first large-scale wind power demonstration base in China was built in 2008. This project has been written into the "Eleventh Five-Year" and "Twelfth Five-Year" renewable energy planning, and many people call it "Three Gorges on the Road".

However, in 2015, nearly 40% of wind power generation equipment was restricted, making it the most severely disabled area in China. The wind power base that was built at a cost of hundreds of billions of yuan in that year can only bask in the Gobi Desert. The director of Jiuquan Energy Bureau said that Jiuquan’s entire installed capacity can generate 30 billion kWh of electricity, but now it only generates less than 17 billion kWh.

The wind power project that has stopped now is only the first phase of the overall project of Jiuquan Wind Power Base. Now, the second phase is under construction.

Gansu Jiuquan Kilowatt Wind Power Base Phase I Project

Who is responsible for "abandoning wind and limiting electricity"?

The phenomenon like Jiuquan in Gansu Province also exists to varying degrees in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Jilin and other places with large installed capacity of wind power equipment. According to the statistics of the National Energy Administration, the direct economic losses caused by these stopped wind power equipment exceeded 16 billion yuan.

With the increasingly severe atmospheric control and the trend of replacing thermal power with clean energy, a large amount of clean energy cannot be put into normal use. What are the reasons? CCTV reporters interviewed all relevant personnel:

Staff of wind power base:The electric power department has strict power restriction instructions.

Gansu Electric Power Company:The consumption of new energy can’t be solved by Gansu or Northwest China alone. If you want to send out the extra electricity, you can only rely on long-distance inter-provincial transmission lines. But at present, there is no supporting transmission line.

State Grid:The transmission line is not without, it has been planned for a long time. It is only the slow approval of national energy that has caused this situation. As early as 2010, when Jiuquan Wind Power Base started construction for one year, the State Grid made an early warning: "There will be a serious surplus of clean energy in Gansu" if there are no external transmission lines.

National Energy AdministrationI don’t agree with the problem of lagging approval. In terms of energy management, local consumption is the best. The problem of "abandoning wind and limiting electricity" arises because the local governments are speeding up development and desperately engaged in construction, and the amount of construction exceeds the local absorptive capacity, which is a problem in planning and management.

Wu Shengxue, who is in charge of Jiuquan new energy project planning, disagrees with overcapacity. He said that when building this large wind power base, it must be integrated into the large power grid and used throughout China. It is implementing the national plan to vigorously develop clean energy, energy conservation and emission reduction, and there is no problem of excessive construction. Because the traditional energy has not retreated, the market of clean energy has been squeezed by thermal power, which has caused the present situation. This is a developing problem, which needs assistance from the national level.

"Phase I" is blocked, where is the electricity for "Phase II"?

Not long ago, the National Energy Administration announced that during the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan period, the windmill would be stopped, and various places, including new energy enterprises, also made suggestions and thought of solutions to the problems. Things seem to have a good result here, but in fact, the windmill has not really ended. Now, the second phase of Gansu Jiuquan Wind Power Base is under construction.

Different from the first phase, in order not to let these wind power have nowhere to go, Jiuquan plans to send these new energy sources to Hunan through the long-distance transmission lines under construction by the State Grid, and then to neighboring provinces such as Hubei and Jiangxi.

Is this power transmission plan feasible in reality? The reporter continued to visit relevant departments in Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi:

Hunan Electric Power Company Power Trading Center:We must first ensure the water and electricity supply in this province, and we cannot sacrifice our own clean energy for the sake of clean energy in other provinces.

Hubei Provincial Development and Reform Commission Electric Power Department:It’s not that any province is short of electricity, so it’s simply a match. This kind of long-distance transmission is not as good as distributed local consumption.

New Energy Department of Jiangxi Energy Bureau:Long-distance power transmission may be very dangerous to our receiving power grid. It will be very dangerous if the power grid collapses and there is a large-scale power outage.

In fact, Hubei, Jiangxi and other places are still launching a large number of coal power generation projects. Because coal prices have fallen to the bottom, thermal power is much cheaper than wind power, so power-deficient provinces would rather build their own coal-fired power projects to solve the power shortage problem than accept foreign wind power. Behind these coal-fired power projects, there are macro considerations such as developing local economy and solving local employment.

Energy layout can’t afford "small abacus"

The national development concept is to gradually replace coal with new energy, but in practice, one side has electricity but no market, and the other side accelerates the construction of coal-fired power plants. What’s wrong with this?

Developing new energy sources and protecting the environment was originally a good thing for the country and the people. Gansu wants to take the opportunity to develop its own wind power base and attract investment; State Grid has seen the opportunity to develop interconnected power grids; In Central China, we want to continue to demand cheap coal to ensure the competitiveness of power enterprises. No one is wrong, but when put together, it’s not right.

Li Junfeng, director of the National Center for Strategic Research and International Cooperation on Climate Change, said that the problem is that our development thinking and behavior are not in step. When the energy supply is divided into administrative regions, it will cause each to solve its own problems and put the rice bowl in its own hands. Consider the interests of your own province, GDP growth, tax growth or employment.

If you want to have a national chess game of electricity consumption, you must have a national chess game of electricity management system. If you want to replace traditional energy with new energy, you must have a decision-making system with this as the first goal. Those departments that play "small abacus" should make way for the "big truth".

First of all, based on the importance of environmental governance, we can no longer simply regard energy projects as a tool to stimulate economic growth, but must plan energy development projects from a global perspective to prevent new traditional energy projects from continuing to occupy the market space of clean energy.

Secondly, the local governance mechanism should be matched with environmental governance as much as possible, and a cross-regional energy construction, utilization and distribution model should be established to solve the restriction of administrative regions on environmental governance, and the big account of environmental governance should also be calculated when calculating local economic accounts.

In fact, what we lack is not wind, wind power or new energy, but what President Xi has repeatedly emphasized: "the driving force for reform".