Carbon Neutral Target Set, Wind Power Development Will Enter The Fast Lane In 2021

Under the clear carbon neutral target, wind power development ushered in strong certainty.

According to Xinhua news agency, on December 12, 2020, President Xi Jinping delivered an important speech entitled "carrying forward the past and opening up a new journey of global response to climate change" at the climate ambition summit, announcing China's independent contribution to a series of new initiatives.

On the basis of the announcement in September 2020 of the plan to "strive for the peak of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060", Xi Jinping further announced that by 2030, China's carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP would drop by more than 65% compared with 2005, the proportion of non fossil energy in primary energy consumption would reach about 25%, and the forest stock would increase compared with 2005 Adding 6 billion cubic meters, the total installed capacity of wind power and solar power will reach more than 1.2 billion kilowatts.

Not long ago, the Information Office of the State Council issued a white paper entitled "China's energy development in a new era", which clearly described the "roadmap" for China to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. At the recent central economic conference, "carbon peak in 2030" and "carbon neutral in 2060" were listed as one of the eight key tasks in 2021.

"The goal of carbon neutrality is China's action in response to global climate change, which highlights the responsibilities and responsibilities of major powers and is of great significance to global sustainable development." Lin Boqiang, President of China Energy Policy Research Institute of Xiamen University, told 21st century economic reporter.

He believes that to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality in the next 40 years, there are both challenges and opportunities for China. In the process of gradually completing the carbon neutral goal, the new energy industry, energy storage industry, CCUs and other zero carbon and negative carbon technology emission industries will usher in relatively rapid development, and China's high-quality development process will be accelerated.

Under the clear carbon neutral target, wind power development ushered in strong certainty. IC photo

Policy support

From the current situation of energy consumption and carbon emission in China, under the constraints of resource endowment, China's energy structure is still dominated by fossil energy. In 2019, China's coal consumption accounted for 57.5%, oil consumption accounted for 18.9%, natural gas consumption accounted for 8.1%, and total fossil energy consumption accounted for nearly 85%. Increasing energy demand and fossil energy consumption structure lead to high carbon dioxide emissions in China.

At present, China's carbon emissions from fossil energy consumption are close to 10 billion tons. From the point of view of carbon emission of fossil energy, the carbon dioxide emission caused by coal consumption has exceeded 7.5 billion tons, accounting for more than 75% of the total carbon emission of fossil energy, followed by oil and natural gas consumption, accounting for about 14% and 7%.

From the perspective of carbon emissions of different industries, as a highly industrialized country, China's carbon emissions are mainly concentrated in power generation and industry. In addition, the transport sector also accounts for a large share of carbon emissions, while the carbon emissions of agriculture, residents, commerce and public services are relatively low.

Specifically, for the power generation industry, as the economic lifeline of a country, the power sector plays an indispensable role in national life. At present, China's power supply structure is still dominated by coal-fired power. By the end of 2019, the installed capacity of coal-fired power generation accounted for 51.8% of the total installed power generation capacity, and the coal-fired power generation accounted for 62.2% of the total power generation in 2019. According to the latest data from the IEA, China's power and heat production sectors account for more than 50% of fossil energy carbon emissions.

Therefore, the power generation and industrial sectors as well as the transportation sector are the main sources of carbon emissions, and the future policy reform will focus on these sectors.

Not long ago, the 2020 central economic work conference made it clear: China's carbon dioxide emissions will strive to reach the peak by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060; we should pay close attention to formulating the action plan for reaching the peak carbon emissions before 2030, and support the localities with conditions to take the lead in reaching the peak; we should accelerate the adjustment and optimization of industrial structure and energy structure, and vigorously develop new energy.

"According to the spirit of this conference, it can be judged that carbon peaking and carbon neutralization are not only medium and long-term development goals, but also will be embodied in 2021. It is expected that some provinces will actively strive to take the lead in reaching the peak, and the enthusiasm of local governments to develop new energy will be significantly improved." An energy industry analyst told the 21st century economic report that "more large-scale wind power and photovoltaic projects are expected to be launched in 2021, and the short-term policy certainty of wind power and photovoltaic will be strengthened."

In the white paper "China's energy development in the new era" issued by the State Council, the paper comprehensively introduces China's energy security strategy of "one revolution, four cooperation" and major changes in the mode of energy production and utilization.

In the fourth chapter, it is emphasized that priority should be given to the development of non fossil energy. The wording of several kinds of non fossil energy is different, which reflects the tasks of all kinds of energy in future development. The emphasis on photovoltaic "utilization", first "comprehensively promote the multi-mode and diversified utilization of solar energy", and then "overall consumption". To emphasize the "development" of wind power, we should first do a good job in the convergence of consumption and then promote the development of wind power.

In terms of new energy consumption, facing the access of high proportion of renewable power generation during the "14th five year plan" period, it is proposed to speed up the construction of a new power system to adapt to the development of high proportion of renewable energy. It emphasizes the construction of trans provincial and trans regional power channels such as flexible DC transmission, local smart grid, micro grid and UHV.

At the same time, we will enhance the peak shaving capacity, promote the coordinated operation of energy storage with new energy generation and power system, and carry out peak shaving pilot projects such as electrochemical energy storage.

Huge investment market starts

Traditionally, China's economic development is driven by the troika investment, consumption and foreign trade. In the process of transformation to high-quality development, China's goal of "2060 carbon neutrality" fits perfectly with the optimization of economic structure.

On December 14, 2020, S & P global rating said that if consumption accounted for a share of GDP close to that of developed economies, China's carbon emissions could be reduced by more than 30% in the next 20 years. "Carbon neutrality is not easy," Shaun Roache, chief economist for Asia Pacific at S & P global ratings, told 21st century economics news. China needs to achieve economic transformation, including the transformation of production content and mode. "

"Suppose that the proportion of Chinese residents' consumption in total expenditure rises from less than 40% at present to 55% in 2040, while investment decreases by the same rate. With the growth of residents' income and the increase of the importance of consumption to the economy, the demand for services relative to the demand for goods will also rise." Shaun Roache said.

Optimizing the economic structure is also conducive to reducing high energy consumption activities, increasing low energy consumption activities and realizing energy transformation. For example, if capital and labor force shift from the production of steel, cement and capital goods to the provision of education, health care and leisure services, the level of energy consumption per unit of GDP may decline.

S & P global Proctor believes that optimizing the economic structure can reduce the level of carbon dioxide emissions by about one-third before 2040. According to its model, if China pursues the "two degree" target, the reduction in emissions can be further expanded.

In fact, the goals proposed by China can not only serve as an example for developing countries, but also serve as a spur for developed countries to achieve their goals. At the same time, compared with the 70 years from carbon peak to carbon neutral in developed countries, China has only 30 years, which means that its difficulty and strength will be unprecedented, and it will also bring opportunities in many fields.

China's zero carbon energy transformation will generate huge investment markets in seven areas, including renewable resource utilization, energy efficiency, electrification of terminal consumption, zero carbon power generation technology, energy storage, hydrogen energy and digitization.

"By 2050, the market size of these seven fields will reach nearly 15 trillion yuan in the same year, and contribute 80% of the cumulative emission reduction for China to achieve zero carbon emissions." "At the same time, between 2020 and 2050, about 70 trillion yuan of infrastructure investment will be directly or indirectly leveraged," said Chen Ji, director of the Rockhill Institute

He believes that historical experience shows that when the market share of new disruptive technologies reaches about 3%, capital will begin to withdraw from traditional enterprises. The fossil energy industry is facing a growing risk of asset grounding, and more and more investors are reassessing their portfolios and priorities to accelerate the withdrawal of fossil energy related fields.

Among the seven areas mentioned above, there are nearly 20 technological innovations, which are currently in different stages of development, forming a broad space for investment.

He said that in this process, the government needs to design step-by-step and interlocking policy actions to guide the overall development of the industry through such measures as scientific research support and encouragement of demonstration projects, guidance of industrial policies and establishment of industrial standards. Market power is the main driving force in the middle and late stage of industrial development, which requires long-term collaborative deployment of production efficiency improvement, product optimization, application scenario expansion and auxiliary service facilities.

At the same time, there is a strong synergy between the investment fields. Zero carbon power, green hydrogen and energy storage are the "foundation" of zero carbon on the demand side; Zero carbon investment in industry, transportation and construction sectors is an important "fulcrum". These technological innovations on the demand side will change the way of energy utilization, promote the formation of new industrial chains and generate new profit pools. Digital technology is the "accelerator" of the whole zero carbon ecological development, and optimizes energy supply, operation and consumption through information technology.

Wind power ushers in deterministic opportunities

2021 will be the first year of domestic PV and onshore wind power parity. Referring to the large-scale new energy projects recently issued by various regions, some projects have realized that the on grid price is lower than the local coal-fired benchmark price, while the photovoltaic and wind power manufacturing industry chain is still undergoing rapid technical iteration and cost reduction, and its economic advantages will be more prominent in the future.

Under the background of high enthusiasm of local governments and central energy and power enterprises to develop new energy, domestic wind power and photovoltaic have entered a typical stage of supply and demand creation, and technology cost reduction will stimulate more demand. From the economic point of view, it is time for China to develop wind power and photovoltaic power on a larger scale at this stage.

Therefore, the development of renewable energy industry has entered the "double speed stage": if the goal of carbon neutrality is to be achieved in 2060, China's power demand will more than triple the current level, which is expected to exceed 20 trillion kwh. If the annual power generation hours of 2000 hours are calculated, there will be about 10 billion kilowatts of new energy installed capacity.

"Therefore, in the next 40 years, the average annual installed capacity of renewable energy will reach more than 200 million kilowatts, which is of course a gradual acceleration process from slow to fast." A new energy industry employee told the 21st century economic reporter.

On October 14, 2020, at the "2020 Beijing wind energy conference" held in Beijing, more than 400 wind power enterprises launched a joint declaration for the first time in the history of wind power enterprises, and determined the "roadmap" of wind power development before 2060.

The declaration guarantees that more than 50 million kilowatts of wind power will be added annually. After 2025, the annual installed capacity of wind power in China should be no less than 60 million kilowatts, reaching at least 800 million kilowatts by 2030 and at least 3 billion kilowatts by 2060.

"In fact, this is equivalent to a roadmap set by the wind power industry for itself." An internal researcher of a central enterprise told the 21st century economic reporter that "this declaration has been carefully calculated when it was formulated, and it is also the road map with practical guiding significance under China's first clear carbon neutral target."

Ren Yuzhi, deputy director of the new energy department of the national energy administration, has publicly said that the wind power industry, as one of the important forces of clean energy, will shoulder more responsibilities and usher in greater development space. "Preliminary consideration, will be greater efforts to promote the large-scale development of wind power; greater efforts to promote wind power technology progress and industrial upgrading; greater efforts to improve the wind power industry policy; greater efforts to promote wind power consumption; greater efforts to promote planning and policy coordination; greater efforts to promote institutional innovation."

A senior executive of a domestic wind energy head enterprise told the 21st century economic report that the coal-fired power originally planned during the "14th five year plan" period may have to give way to wind power and photovoltaic power to a greater extent.

"Especially after the energy storage technology can be applied, it can greatly stabilize the wind power fluctuation and realize the stable grid connection." "In this case, the new energy export of the three north regions needs to replace part of the thermal power in the current UHV lines; at the same time, in the construction of new UHV lines in the future, more consideration should be given to the export of renewable energy."