New Electricity Reform

With the invaluable "window period" of electricity supply, the new electricity reform plan will be announced. The next step is to increase pilots and introduce detailed implementation rules. The industry believes that this change may bring about a wave of power Internet entrepreneurship

Delayed power system reform for many years has finally ushered in a moment of final confirmation. On December 31, 2014, the State Council executive meeting officially passed the “New Electricity Reform” program; in February this year, the Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau again confirmed the plan.

The forthcoming new electricity reform plan is similar to the previous draft of the drafts issued by the National Development and Reform Commission to major power companies. This document, entitled "Several Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Electric Power System," contains a total of 36 articles. It is summarized as “four release, one independence, and one strengthening”, that is, the release of operational electricity prices other than transmission and distribution, the release of electricity sales business, the release of incremental electricity distribution business, and the issuance of Power Supply plans other than public welfare and regulation. Open, trade fair, and strengthen planning.

This is another major breakthrough in China's power market reform following the introduction of “No. 5 Document” by the State Council on power system reform in 2002. However, compared to the clear structure and clear direction of the “No. 5 Document”, the current electrical reform program is more general, leaving many industry insiders who have high hopes for it to be disappointed.

Wang Dongrong, deputy director of the International Policy Research Department of CLP International, said in an interview with Caijing that the new power reform plan only sounded the clarion call for reform, and the substantive role of the reform program depends on the specific implementation rules for the next step and the various local electric reform experiments. result.

This is also the opinion of most experts interviewed by Caijing reporters. The framework of the electric reform program has no suspense, and the key lies in the specific implementation details for the next step. On the New Year's Day this year, the Shenzhen Electrical Reform has been launched. Next, the mature conditions of Mengxi Power Grid and even Yunnan Power Grid are all candidates for the reform pilot.

After this, the power system reform will gradually spread across the country, and the power trading market will gradually form. One of the favorable conditions for this round of power reform is that the country’s electricity supply situation has been relatively relaxed since 2014, and the average number of hours used by thermal power generators in the country is only 4,807, a record of nearly 20 years. CEC expects that this year's power supply situation will continue to be loose.

In this "window period" of electrical reform, precisely at the right moment, the impact of industry fluctuations on society at the beginning of reform will remain in a controllable state.

The soon-to-be-shifted electricity was changed to investors to open up the imagination. Some employees of the power system are also about to start their own business ideas. The new electricity reform program has clearly defined the distribution of power distribution, and the trend of integration of electricity and the Internet, are the next look.

The significance of the Shenzhen pilot

On New Year's Day this year, the pilot work of Shenzhen's electrical reform was officially launched. It is reported that "Shenzhen transmission and distribution prices fell by 1 point." The so-called "transmission and distribution prices" have been previously pushed back from the difference between the purchase and sale of power grids, not based on actual transmission and distribution costs. This point, the frontier of reform in Shenzhen is no different from the country. Previously, the difference between the purchase price and the sale price of the power grid was called the “black box.” How the difference is formed and how much the actual cost of transmission and distribution differs, no one can say clearly, and the object of reform is more reluctant to make it clear.

The most important task of electric reform is to open this black box. The reason why I chose to eat crabs in Shenzhen is because it is the weakest point of the black box. Shenzhen's market economy is highly developed, the degree of urbanization is leading the country, and the urban power grid is intensive. “The rural power grid hardly exists”, which determines that cross-subsidies are less in Shenzhen.

The existence of a large number of cross-subsidies has always been an important reason why transmission and distribution prices have been difficult to clarify. In most countries in the world, the commercial electricity price is generally lower than the residential electricity price. The reason is simple: Business users have higher power load levels and concentration, less power loss during power transmission, and lower power supply costs; while residential users have the lowest voltage level and disperse layout, especially when some rural users are located remotely and access the grid. Separate lines need to be set up remotely and the cost is extremely high.

The approach adopted by China is to raise the electricity prices of industrial and commercial users and lower the electricity prices of residents. In essence, industrial and commercial users subsidize the use of electricity by residents. Not only that, but also various forms of cross-subsidies have existed in the country, which has caused the cost of power transmission and distribution in most parts of China to be unclear.

The pilot program in Shenzhen precisely limits the “what assets can be counted as transmission and distribution costs.” It includes only the electric power industry’s management departments’ determination that the planned line includes lines, substation equipment, and other related to transmission and distribution business. asset.

The Shenzhen pilot program also excludes transmission and distribution assets that have not been examined and approved by the government investment authority or the state-owned assets management department, and the auxiliary, multi-track, and tertiary-production assets that have been separated from the power grid companies. Outside of fixed assets.

After determining the transmission and distribution prices, Shenzhen will determine the new model of grid profitability in accordance with the internationally accepted "permitted income" approach. After the reform, the operating income of Shenzhen Power Grid will not be related to the amount of electricity transferred, but related to the scale of assets, operational efficiency and social inflation rate. After the calculation formula and various parameters are determined, adjustments are made every three years according to the actual situation.

However, due to the special nature of Shenzhen, the experience of Shenzhen's electrical reform pilot may not be of universal significance.

“Shenzhen is too special.” Professor Zeng Ming of North China Electric Power University believes that “Comparatively, the calculation process of transmission and distribution costs in Shenzhen is still relatively simple. Other regions are much more difficult. Some methods and methods in Shenzhen may not have promotion. significance."

However, Zeng Ming also pointed out that the significance of Shenzhen's electrical reform is to determine a new model for the revenue permitted by the grid. Since then, trials in Inner Mongolia and other places, as well as electric power reforms spread across the country in the future, will follow this pattern.

Shenzhen Electrical Reform opened the black box for transmission and distribution prices. An expert who has long studied electrical reforms and who declined to be named said that “despite the existence of a large number of cross-subsidies, the price of transmission and distribution can always be clarified, not whether it can, but whether we want it. However, Shenzhen is the easiest.”

Mengxi: Electric hard bones

The next stop of the reform is the West Inner Mongolia grid. On January 15 this year, officials of the National Development and Reform Commission stated that they approved the reform of the transmission and distribution price reform pilot project in Western Inner Mongolia Power Grid. On this basis, the National Development and Reform Commission will continue to accumulate experience and improve policies in 2015 to further expand the scope of the electric reform pilots, and create conditions for comprehensively promoting the reform of transmission and distribution prices.

However, Mengxi Power Grid also has its own characteristics. In addition to the Southern Power Grid and the State Grid, Mengxi Power Grid is the only independent provincial-level power grid company.

Jiang Lanmei, director of the Power Division of the Energy Development Bureau of the Inner Mongolia Development and Reform Commission, once stated at the 2013 internal meeting on the medium and long-term planning of the Inner Mongolia power grid that Mengxi Power Grid hopes to become a breakthrough for China's electric power reform. The orientation of the regional government is the public service enterprise. .

This time, the reason why Mengxi Power Grid became the next pilot project after Shenzhen Power Grid, the support of local governments and the enthusiasm of power grid companies themselves is one of the most important factors. The Mengxi region has a large number of thermal power and wind power resources, but the power of the power grid is very serious. Both Mengxi Power Grid and local governments hope to change this dilemma through electric power reform.

“The enthusiasm of the local government and the grid company itself is a key factor in the smooth progress of the electric reform pilot.” Zeng Ming said that compared with Shenzhen, the Mengxi power grid is more representative. The developers of the electric reform program are also happy to see the reform of the Mengxi power grid.

However, Mengxi also has problems. First of all, unlike Shenzhen Power Grid, there is a lot of cross-subsidization. When measuring transmission and distribution tariffs, there are many more factors to consider. In particular, as a place of renewable energy in China, the grid construction in Inner Mongolia needs to consider a large number of new energy sources connected to the grid. Therefore, the grid structure, distribution network construction, and networking with the national grid must be considered in the calculation of the investment cost of Mengxi Power Grid.

In the 2013 conference, the national grid representatives believed that there will be a large amount of power resources in the Mengxi power grid to the national power grid area. Therefore, it is recommended that the Mengxi power grid should build eight “Ultra-quadruple” UHV channels by 2020. It is also necessary to use UHV AC technology to upgrade the main grid of Mengxi Power Grid.

However, Mengxi Power Grid tends to maintain the existing 500KV grid structure, and the outbound problem is willing to adopt DC UHV. In both cases, the difference in investment amounts to nearly 30 billion yuan. The medium and long-term planning of Mengxi Power Grid released at the end of 2013 shows that by 2020, the main task of Mengxi Power Grid will be to strengthen and optimize the 500KV main network, but it has not made explicit the issue of the outbound channel. Until today, the long-term plan of the national grid has not yet been issued. What kind of plan is the link between the Mengxi power grid and the national power grid is still unsolved.

This kind of uncertainty has brought trouble to the electrical reform pilot project of Mengxi Power Grid. It is not easy to calculate the transmission and distribution costs without using UHV, using AC or DC, and building UHV.

A number of experts interviewed by the "Finance" reporter appealed that the long-term planning of the power grid is directly related to the determination of the scale of power grid assets and the calculation of future costs. It is of critical significance for the development of transmission and distribution prices and should be upgraded to a more important position.

The complexity of cross-subsidization and the uncertainty of the scale of assets can be considered as the two “hard bones” of the pilot project of Mengxi Power Grid. This year, Mengxi Power Grid needs to concentrate on solving it.

An industry insider who is close to the core of the development of this round of electric reform programs stated that it is likely that it will take longer before the external sales side liberalizes the pace of waiting for electric power reforms. At present, the most feasible route for electric reform is to diverge into pilots, set up markets, and promote them nationwide. After the widespread approval of revenue models, problems such as the release of power-selling side and the release of operating electricity prices will be solved.

New electricity reform, new business opportunities

This round of power system reform will release a huge commercial imagination. The power grid has historically been the center of energy information collection and distribution. How the situation on the power sale side is supplied, how the distribution side should allocate resources, and how the demand side responds is of utmost importance to the power industry.

The first commercial space released is in the grid. At present, the employees of the power grid system have chosen to resign from their jobs and to lay out the electricity system in advance.

Wang Dongrong said that reform may have some opportunities. "The iron plate will move away, some soil will appear, and the seed will grow into a tall tree."

China Power Grid Corporation eliminated the fault within 24 hours, and only satisfied the basic needs of customers - electricity is available. In the future, electricity and the Internet will be deeply integrated to meet the needs of customers at higher levels, including energy services and electricity deployment.

In Europe and the United States, the deep integration of electricity and the Internet has led to a large number of entrepreneurial energy Internet companies, which have met the various needs of customers. This must be copied after China's electricity reform.

For civil power customers, the combination of electricity and the Internet can help them understand the power supply and demand information at any time and use cheap energy more accurately and effectively. In the United States, users can use smart phones to remotely regulate home appliances and help owners save money.

This principle also applies to business users. Power Internet can help business owners to clearly understand the real-time changes in energy prices. For power users with special requirements for power quality, energy Internet service providers can provide a full set of energy management solutions.