Events
Since the end of February, the situation in Russia and Ukraine has continued to deteriorate, and the EU has successively announced sanctions against Russia. According to Xinhua news agency, the European Commission proposed a plan called REpower EU on the 8th, which plans to gradually get rid of dependence on Russian fossil fuels by 2030. Among the options available, nuclear power restart has become one of the important alternatives. Therefore, we will take Germany, the economic engine of the EU, as an example to explore whether the restart of nuclear power can reduce Germany’s dependence on Russia.
The growth of new energy and the change of policy environment have jointly contributed to the change of Germany’s attitude towards nuclear power. In 2021, Germany’s installed capacity reached 222 million kilowatts, 1.42 times that of 2010, including 123 million kilowatts of new energy, an increase of 78.11 million kilowatts since 2010, which is the core reason for the growth of installed capacity. However, despite the significant expansion of installed capacity, German power generation has been stagnant since 2010, and German power generation in 2021 is even lower than that in 2010. In the case of shrinking electricity scale, it is the rapid expansion of clean energy installed capacity and the change of policy environment that have jointly contributed to the change of Germany’s attitude towards nuclear power: the Fukushima nuclear accident broke out in 2011 and Germany set off a wave of de nuclear power. In 2011, 8.36 million KW nuclear power units were shut down, and Germany continued to shut down the remaining nuclear power units in the following 10 years. By the end of 2021, The remaining nuclear power units in operation in Germany are 8.11 million KW, a decrease of 12.32 million KW compared with 2010.
Although the restart of the unit can meet the gap, the restart road is blocked and long. We calculate that the fossil energy supplied by Germany and Russia will generate 82.4 billion kwh in 2021. If we take the utilization hours of nuclear power in 2021 as the benchmark, we need an increase of 10.23 million kw of nuclear power units to meet the power demand. Although the scale of nuclear power units shut down in Germany since 2011 has reached 12.32 million KW, which seems to produce a large scale of power production after restart, we believe that the road to restart is long: 1) among them, the shutdown time of more than 8 million KW nuclear power units has been more than 10 years, and the aging equipment technology increases the difficulty of restart; 2) Nuclear power operation is by no means easy. In addition to capital intensive, it is also a talent intensive industry. Even if it is easy to restart the equipment in the short term, the return or training of operation and maintenance personnel is not a day; 3) The calculation data only includes the fossil energy consumption of the power industry, and the fossil energy consumption of non power industries is not included in the calculation. In fact, natural gas and other uses are diverse. Half of German households rely on natural gas for heating, while in the manufacturing industry, ceramics and other industries cannot maintain production without natural gas. If non power demand is considered, The restart of nuclear power is also difficult to meet the energy demand; 4) The construction period of nuclear power is as long as 60-72 months. Once the approval of new units is interrupted, even the new nuclear power will be far from water.
Under the requirements of clean energy and improving its own energy self-sufficiency ratio, the base load power of nuclear power can not be ignored. Due to the extremely high barriers of nuclear power, it needs a long-term and stable growth environment to ensure the uninterrupted supply of operation and maintenance personnel and technology. Therefore, under the dual carbon goal, nuclear power and wind power are also important components of clean and low-carbon power supply.
Investment advice
The call of “carbon neutrality” era and the reform of power marketization will run through the whole “14th five year plan” period. We believe that the internal value of power operators will be comprehensively revalued. In this context, the reform and improvement of power price formation mechanism is expected to catalyze the improvement of thermal power operation margin. It is recommended to pay attention to high-quality transformation thermal power Huaneng Power International Inc(600011) , Guangdong Electric Power Development Co.Ltd(000539) and Fujian Funeng Co.Ltd(600483) ; With the rapid growth of new energy installed capacity and the increasingly prominent value of green power, China Three Gorges Renewables (Group) Co.Ltd(600905) , Longyuan Power and China National Nuclear Power Co.Ltd(601985) ; The hydropower sector recommends industry leaders China Yangtze Power Co.Ltd(600900) with clear growth space and Huaneng Lancang River Hydropower Inc(600025) with improved supply and demand; The comprehensive distribution service of the Three Gorges energy group is expected to be recommended.
Risk tips
1. The risk of deterioration of power supply and demand, and the policy promotion is less than expected; 2. There is a non seasonal risk in coal price and the risk of continuous decline of incoming water.
