Can The "On Grid Price" Be Allowed To Rise In Many Places To Ease The Shortage Of Power Supply?

In June this year, the national development and Reform Commission (NDRC) responded on its official website that it would gradually ease the cross subsidy of electricity prices and restore the property of electric power commodities, which caused heated market discussion. As for how to adjust the electricity price, it involves disputes among all parties, and the attitude of all circles is very cautious.

Recently, a wave of power rationing sweeping the north and the South has heated the discussion of price adjustment again. Soaring coal and stable electricity price form a sharp contrast, how to ease the soaring cost, in order to ease the tension of power supply?

Power rationing

Since the end of August, from East China to South China, and then to southwest China, many provinces and regions have opened power rationing. Industries and enterprises with high energy consumption and high emission such as cement, steel and nonferrous metals have successively reduced, limited or even stopped production. Many other industries have also been affected.

At first, people from all walks of life generally attributed the reason to energy saving and consumption reduction. As the third quarter is coming to an end, many provinces and regions in China have been warned by the national development and Reform Commission because of the worrying completion of the annual "energy consumption double control" work, which means that the targets will be completed in the third quarter.

But soon, this wave of power rationing spread from the energy consuming provinces in the southeast to the northeast, where the power supply is abundant.

In fact, since the beginning of the year, there has been a tight supply and demand situation in many parts of China. In the first half of the year, due to extreme weather and rapid economic recovery and other factors, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Guangdong, Yunnan and other places in China had power supply gaps, so the measures of demand response and orderly power utilization were taken.

Since the beginning of summer this year, the sustained economic recovery and rising temperature have driven the demand for electricity to continue to climb the peak. In addition, the substitution of hydropower is not as good as in previous years, so the thermal power as the main supply force is further under pressure. However, as an important fuel for thermal power supply, due to the slow release of domestic production capacity and the limited increase of imported coal and other factors, combined with the overall price rise of bulk commodities in the year, the supply and demand situation continued to be tense, and the price also went up all the way.

By the end of the afternoon of September 30, the main contract of domestic steam coal futures closed at 1393.6 yuan / ton, breaking through the 1400 yuan / ton mark for a time, continuously setting a new record. In April last year, the lowest price of steam coal was less than 500 yuan / ton.

It is worth noting that due to the implementation of the "dual control of energy consumption" work, many places have restricted the production of cement, building materials, nonferrous metals, smelting and other "two high" industries to promote energy consumption control and environmental protection.

Many industry insiders pointed out that one of the core influencing factors of the current shortage of power supply is coal supply shortage. In the second half of the year, the supply of coal resources is tight, the inventory of coal power enterprises is kept at a low level, and the cost continues to rise, the operating pressure of coal power generation enterprises is further increased.

A staff member of a thermal power generation enterprise in East China revealed that coal is still supplied by market-oriented mechanism, but power is not completely market-oriented. At present, many power plants have fallen into a state of loss, and even some of them will have some losses after one-time power generation.

In order to ensure the power supply, the power plant can only be forced to generate electricity, but the overall willingness is obviously frustrated. Therefore, for some electric power enterprises, partial power rationing and production restriction can also relieve the operating pressure to a certain extent. Many power plants have applied for outage maintenance of some units according to the original plan.

On September 27, the China Electric Power Enterprise Federation pointed out in an article published on its official website that in order to ensure the safety of coal consumption in winter, the electric power enterprises continued to increase market procurement regardless of the cost, and the inventory continued to rise slowly.

Price fluctuation in many places

The adjustment of electricity price will always attract the attention of all walks of life, so the relevant actions are more cautious. Recently, in order to ease the pressure of coal price rise, many places have begun to adjust the electricity price mechanism slightly.

On September 27, Hunan Provincial Development and Reform Commission issued the trial scheme of coal-fired and thermal power trading price floating mechanism in Hunan electric power market (hereinafter referred to as "Hunan plan"), which proposed to introduce coal purchase price of coal-fired and thermal power enterprises as a parameter and adjust the upper limit of transaction price according to a certain cycle on the basis of determining the transaction benchmark price in the power market, The mechanism of upper limit floating of transaction price of coal-fired thermal power market linked with coal price shall be established to reasonably reflect the cost of power generation and consumption and reduce market risk.

According to the Hunan plan, the trading price of coal-fired power plant will fluctuate with the average coal price, but the maximum fluctuation of the transaction price shall not exceed the national regulation; If the transaction price rises to the maximum value, the fuel cost of thermal power can not be fully dredged, and the excess cost will be dredged by prolonging the rising time of transaction price, which can be accumulated.

On September 29, the person in charge of the economic operation regulation Bureau of the national development and Reform Commission (NDRC) responded to the issue of energy supply guarantee this winter and next spring, saying that it would reasonably channel the power generation cost according to the price policy, strictly implement the market-oriented price mechanism of "benchmark price + up and down floating" of coal-fired power generation, allow more electricity to enter the market for trading, and shall not interfere with the normal fluctuation of market price within a reasonable range, Let the price reasonably reflect the change of power supply and demand and cost.

From the perspective of policy, the orderly adjustment of electricity price has been gradually promoted. In June this year, the national development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced in a rare way that it would gradually ease the cross subsidy of electricity prices and restore the nature of electricity commodities. In July, the national development and Reform Commission issued a notice to further improve the time of use pricing mechanism, emphasizing that the peak valley time periods will be scientifically divided and the price difference between peak and valley electricity prices will be reasonably determined. Meanwhile, it is proposed that all localities should implement peak price mechanism and improve seasonal electricity price mechanism on the basis of peak valley price, and further advocate peak shaving and valley filling.

Since the beginning of this year, Guangxi, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia and other places have adjusted the electricity trading price, moderately liberalizing the restrictions on the upward floating of electricity prices. On September 30, the Guangdong Provincial Development and Reform Commission also announced that since October 1, the peak price difference will be widened, and the peak price will rise by 25% based on the peak section price of the time of use price.

Can electricity price increase alleviate the shortage of power supply?

Dong Xiucheng, an energy economist and professor at the University of foreign economic relations and trade, told reporters in the 21st century economic report that the cost rise brought about by coal prices needs to be channelled downstream, otherwise it will lead to problems in economic operation and power supply.

"The relevant departments have been carefully promoting the reform of the electricity market, but the residential electricity price is related to the people's livelihood, so it is more sensitive, so the direction of industrial power reform and residential power reform is different," said Dong Xiucheng.

The implementation scope of time of use price policy and peak price in Guangdong Province does not include residential users. Hunan Provincial Development and Reform Commission has previously said that the electricity price adjustment policy will not affect residential electricity prices.

Shenwan Hongyuan securities research report points out that the domestic power industry has prominent public utility attributes, the progress of electricity market-oriented transaction lags behind, and the electricity price mechanism is difficult to reflect the nature of power commodity; Under the dual carbon target, the expansion of coal and coal-fired power capacity is limited. The new power system with new energy as the main body needs to pay huge extra cost to solve the problem of fluctuation. Returning to commodity property and opening up electricity price rise will be the key to solve the problem of dual control of energy consumption and power restriction.

Recently, the national development and Reform Commission said that it would take various measures to ensure the stable supply of energy this winter and spring, and ensure the safety of residents' electricity use; Including state grid, state energy group, China Huadian, etc. have also made a statement, will do their best to do a good job in energy supply.

Yuan Jiahai, a professor at the school of economics and management of North China Electric Power University, said that the prices of basic energy such as coal and natural gas have risen sharply, while renewable energy is only a supplement, there is no realistic basis to curb the rise of electricity prices; At present, what we can do is to let the market mechanism give full play to its role where it should play a role, and the government should provide the necessary support for the link that should guarantee the bottom.

"Energy transformation is a long-term process, especially for large energy consuming countries like China. What we can do now is to let renewable energy play a greater role in the incremental power demand, and gradually realize that the increment is fully met by clean renewable energy. As for the replacement of stock, there is still a long way to go," said Yuan Jiahai.

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