China Southern Power Grid's power gap will reach 18 million kilowatts next year

The reporter learned from the China Southern Power Grid Corporation's 2011 Summer Summit and the Commendation of the Wind and Flood Prevention Commendation Conference that the largest power shortage in the entire network of the China Southern Power Grid is estimated to be 15-18 million kilowatts from the fourth quarter to 2012.

It is reported that the largest electricity gap is in Guangdong, which will reach 6-10 million kilowatts, 3 million kilowatts in Guangxi, 2 million kilowatts in Yunnan, and 200,000 kilowatts in Hainan.

“Although we have already overcome the most difficult period of summer peaks, this year’s tasks are still very important. We must continue to maintain a good mental state and do a solid job in all aspects of work safety, power supply, and everything. Through this difficult winter and spring, we will lay a good foundation for summer peaks in the next year, said Zhong Jun, general manager of China Southern Power Grid Corporation.

According to reports, the main reason for the continued power shortage this winter and next spring is twofold: First, from the electricity market, demand will continue to grow strongly. In the next stage, with the increase in winter heating load, the western provinces and regions will usher in a new round of peak electricity consumption. The long-term large-scale power restrictions to promote the high market prices of high energy-consuming products will further stimulate the production needs of enterprises. In addition, all provinces have a backlog of a number of new projects due to limited power production failed to put into operation on schedule, the potential demand is still very strong, it is expected that the entire network in the fourth quarter the maximum load demand will reach 1.05-1.10 million kilowatts, an increase of about 16%.

Second, from the perspective of generating capacity, there are still more troublesome factors. One is the lack of growth in installed capacity. From January to September, the newly added power generation capacity in the five southern provinces was 9.08 million kilowatts, with a growth rate of 6%, which was far below the load of the whole network and the growth of electricity consumption. In the fourth quarter, it plans to add about 5.1 million kilowatts of installed capacity, including about 2.6 million kilowatts of thermal power, about 1.5 million kilowatts of hydropower, and about 1 million kilowatts of wind power, and about 2.7 million kilowatts of new installed capacity in the first quarter of next year. Second, the incoming water continued to be severely dry and the reservoir was insufficient for water storage. At present, the energy storage capacity of the three major river basins is only 8.4 billion kWh, a year-on-year decrease of 60%. It is expected that the incoming water in the Hongshui River and Wujiang River basin will continue to be 5-80% dry in the fourth quarter, and the Gan River basin will be 3-40% dry. Third, the supply of coal is still not optimistic. At the end of September, 11.64 million tons of coal were stored on the whole network, a decrease of 5.12 million tons over the same period of last year, and it was available for 14.1 days. At present, due to insufficient supply of coal, coal quality and other factors affect the thermal power output of about 12 million kilowatts, is expected to further increase in the fourth quarter to next year. The fourth is a substantial reduction of West-East electricity transmission. It is estimated that in the year of 2011, the amount of electricity delivered by the West-to-East power grid can reach 98.4 billion kwh, which is a reduction of 18 billion kwh from the annual plan. Of which, West Power sent Guangdong electricity to reduce 15.7 billion kwh, and Guizhou sent 11.3 billion kwh off electricity.