Recently, staff from the Guiyang Power Supply Bureau of the Southern Power Grid conducted a winter safe power inspection for the centralized energy storage power station in Kaiyang County, Guiyang City, the largest new energy storage power station in Guizhou Province, to ensure the safe operation of green energy storage power stations. The installed capacity of the power station is 400 megawatt-hours, and the average annual power generation can reach 120 million kilowatt-hours. Photo by Wan Wei (People's Vision)

This newspaper, Beijing, January 13 (Reporter Liao Ruiling) The National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration recently issued the "Implementation Plan for Optimizing the Power System Adjustment Capacity (2025-2027)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Implementation Plan"), proposing that by 2027, the power system adjustment capacity will be significantly improved, the market environment and business model for the development of various types of regulating resources will be further improved, and the mechanism for calling various types of regulating resources will be further improved. Support the rational consumption and utilization of new energy of more than 200 million kilowatts per year from 2025 to 2027, and the national new energy utilization rate is no less than 90%.

At present, renewable energy in the country is developing rapidly, and higher requirements are put forward for the power system regulation capacity. According to a relevant person in charge of the National Energy Administration, as of the end of the third quarter of 2024, the national flexible adjustment of coal-fired power scale exceeded 600 million kilowatts, the cross-provincial and regional power resource allocation capacity exceeded 300 million kilowatts, the cumulative scale of pumped storage reached 55.91 million kilowatts, and 58.52 million kilowatts/128 million kilowatt-hours have been completed and put into operation.

"At present, my country's regulation of resource development is also facing some challenges and problems." A relevant person in charge of the National Energy Administration said that China's annual new energy installation scale exceeded 200 million kilowatts, and it is expected that the "15th Five-Year Plan" will continue its rapid growth trend, significantly increasing the pressure on system consumption. From January to October 2024, the national wind power utilization rate was 96.4%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.7 percentage points; the photovoltaic power utilization rate was 97.1%, a year-on-year decrease of 1.2 percentage points. The pressure to absorb in some provinces with fast-growing new energy development is highlighted. However, the construction of regulation capacity lacks overall optimization, the existing regulation resources have not been fully utilized, and prices, market mechanisms, etc. need to be improved. It is urgent to make scientific planning and construction of regulation resources, strengthen the connection between the scale and layout of regulation capabilities and the development of new energy, and increase efforts to coordinate the efficient dispatch and utilization of existing regulation resources.

Focusing on the above issues, the "Implementation Plan" puts forward targeted measures, and puts forward key tasks in three aspects: preparing a adjustment capacity building plan, improving the adjustment resource call method, and improving the adjustment resource participation market mechanism. For example, it is required to combine the growth scale and utilization rate goals of new energy, scientifically calculate the requirements for adjustment capacity, and clarify the scale of new coal-fired power flexibility transformation, gas-power, hydropower, pumped storage, new energy storage, solar thermal, friendly new energy, grid-side and load-side adjustment capacity, which will help ensure the rational consumption and utilization of new energy; it is proposed that the power dispatching agency formulates new energy storage scheduling operation rules, give priority to dispatching new energy storage during difficult periods of new energy consumption, and achieve due adjustment within the day.

According to reports, the National Energy Administration will organize dispatched agencies to carry out supervision of the regulation resource construction and call situation, and urge provincial energy authorities to analyze the reasons and make rectifications in areas where the utilization rate of new energy has dropped significantly, the scale of new energy development does not match the regulation capacity, the construction of regulation resources is lagging, and the callable adjustment capacity is not fully utilized. The provincial energy authorities will urge the provincial energy authorities to analyze the reasons and make rectifications, and promptly introduce relevant policies and measures to effectively ensure the rational utilization rate of new energy.