Analysis of Five Major Problems Facing China's Electric Power Industry Development in 2013

In recent years, China's power industry has actively changed its development methods, adjusted its power supply structure, and adhered to a clean, green and low-carbon development path. It has made important contributions to social and economic development and ecological civilization construction. Although we have achieved good results in terms of clean, green, and low-carbon development, compared with the state's environmental protection requirements for power companies, there is still a big gap. The road to clean development still faces arduous tasks and challenges. The difficulties and problems currently encountered mainly include the following five aspects:

The first is that the concept of clean development has not really been ingrained. Affected by the long-term planned economy and extensive development model, the thinking mode of some power companies has not really come out of the scale of thinking, but there is not enough emphasis on the connotative development, the cultivation of the core competitiveness, and the achievement of excellence.

Second, the lack of funds for energy conservation and environmental protection and the implementation of the clean development strategy are constrained. Affected by the "market coal and planned electricity," the five major central power generation group's thermal power sector suffered losses for 4 years and accumulated losses reached 92.1 billion yuan. Therefore, there is a lack of capital investment and guarantees in the early stage of investment in environmental protection facilities, energy-saving technological transformation, etc. The implementation of the clean development strategy is greatly affected.

Third, the power companies have limited capacity. The state’s control over the emission of thermal power pollutants is increasing day by day. The cost of a series of equipment such as desulfurization, denitrification, and dust removal, as well as operation and maintenance costs are high, leading to increased costs for enterprises and aggravated burdens, which cannot be compensated in the short term.

Fourth, the development of new energy has encountered bottlenecks, and related reforms and supporting measures have not been put in place. The state's support for the development of new energy is a good policy that has brought new problems while stimulating the development of new energy blowouts. First of all, the development is too fast and the market is surplus. When the development of new energy in 2008 was just in its infancy, due to its small number and strong policy support, it experienced more than three years of development “golden period”. Since 2012, the new energy power generation market has become saturated or even surplus. It is typical of wind power, Photovoltaic power generation and other industries, after undergoing rapid expansion, have caused relatively serious low-end homogenization competition consequences, and the entire industry is facing reshuffling. In addition, there are many restraints and the benefits are not as expected. For example, hydropower is affected by immigration and environmental protection factors. The safety of nuclear power is questioned and it is difficult to obtain qualifications and development is hindered; the core technology of solar thermal power generation is immature and the cost of power generation is high. Second, related systems and measures are not in place.

New energy development lacks overall consideration and overall planning, and there is still a long way to go in terms of industrial scale and standardization.

Fifth, the lack of investment in R&D of science and technology, and the low level of core technologies for energy conservation and environmental protection. Compared with developed countries, there is still a large gap between the level of China's electric power technology, insufficient emphasis on scientific and technological research and development, insufficient investment, weak foundation for independent innovation, and lagging core and key technologies at the advanced level in the world. Localization of important equipment is low. Key technologies and equipment, such as aeroderivative gas turbines, large-scale clean and high-efficiency power generation equipment, polysilicon, shale gas exploration and development technology, advanced nuclear reactor technology, etc. rely on foreign introduction, increasing the cost of green environmental protection.