Premier Li Keqiang chaired an executive meeting of the State Council on April 20 to deploy measures to further improve agricultural production in spring to ensure a bumper harvest of grain and a stable supply of important Shenzhen Agricultural Products Group Co.Ltd(000061) crops; Determine measures to ensure and increase energy supply, and improve the guarantee capacity of energy for economic and social development.
The meeting pointed out that we should be based on China's national conditions, respond to external challenges, grasp key points, strengthen energy supply, and take precautions to promote the construction of energy projects with mature conditions and development needs. First, we should give full play to the role of coal as the main energy source. We will optimize approval policies for coal production and project construction, implement local responsibilities for stabilizing production and ensuring supply, and fully release advanced production capacity. Through nuclear capacity increase and new production, 300 million tons of new capacity will be added this year. Using market-oriented and legal methods to guide the operation of coal prices in a reasonable range. Second, we should promote the transformation of coal-fired power units and improve energy efficiency. The scale of transformation in the whole year exceeded 220 million kilowatts. Third, nuclear power should be developed in an orderly manner under the premise of strict supervision and ensuring absolute safety. The three new nuclear power unit projects that have been comprehensively evaluated and reviewed and incorporated into the national plan shall be approved.
After China's soaring coal prices last year, power rationing in many places, guaranteed supply of coal and electricity losses and the drastic fluctuations in the international energy market since this year, firmly holding the energy rice bowl in their own hands, first standing and then breaking, and promoting the dual carbon goal has become the primary task and core of China's energy policy. In the short term, China's coal still bears the responsibility and task of energy security. This is particularly prominent at a time when the global energy market is turbulent and the international prices of coal, crude oil and natural gas have risen sharply.
On April 11, when Li Keqiang presided over a symposium of key leaders of some local governments in Jiangxi, he stressed that all relevant parties should focus on the overall situation, strengthen coordination, ensure the stable supply of energy such as electricity and coal, and accelerate the release of China's advanced coal production capacity.
Earlier in early March, Hu Zucai, deputy director of the national development and Reform Commission, said in response to "how to alleviate the impact of rising commodity prices" at the press conference of the state information office, "the focus is to ensure the supply and price of coal. China's coal accounts for 56% of total energy consumption, coal-fired power generation accounts for about 60%, stable coal price means stable electricity price, and the 'basic price' of energy price is stable."
Surging news noted that since December last year, the frequency of statements around coal / coal power in the high-level setting of energy work has increased significantly, which points out the general direction for this year's energy work.
The central economic work conference held in December last year stressed that the gradual withdrawal of traditional energy should be based on the safe and reliable substitution of new energy. Based on the basic national conditions of coal, we should pay attention to the clean and efficient utilization of coal, increase the consumption capacity of new energy, and promote the optimal combination of coal and new energy.
In January this year, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee proposed to strengthen the planning and construction of a new energy supply and consumption system based on large-scale wind and solar power bases, supported by clean, efficient, advanced and energy-saving coal power around them, and supported by stable, safe and reliable UHV power transmission and transformation lines. We should resolutely control fossil energy consumption, especially strictly and reasonably control the growth of coal consumption, orderly reduce and replace, and vigorously promote the "three transformation linkage" of coal power energy conservation and carbon reduction, flexibility and heating transformation. We should consolidate the foundation of China's energy production, ensure the safety of coal supply, maintain the stable growth of crude oil and natural gas production capacity, strengthen the construction of gas and oil reserve capacity, and promote the large-scale application of advanced energy storage technologies.
Last October, when Li Keqiang presided over the meeting of the National Energy Commission, he stressed that energy security is related to development security and national security. China is still a developing country, and development is the foundation and key to solving all problems. At this stage, with the deepening of industrialization and urbanization, energy demand will inevitably continue to grow. Supply shortage is the biggest energy insecurity. We must build a modern energy system on the premise of ensuring security and strive to improve the ability of independent energy supply. We should optimize the layout of coal production capacity, reasonably build advanced coal power according to development needs, and continue to eliminate backward coal power in an orderly manner.
The key points defined in the guidance on energy work in 2022 released by the national energy administration at the end of March can be summarized as stabilizing oil and increasing gas coal. Among them, the guiding opinions proposed to strengthen the bottom-up guarantee capacity of coal and coal power. Make overall plans for resource continuity and sustainable development of mining areas, and orderly approve a number of high-quality and advanced production capacity coal mines. Accelerate the construction and operation of coal mines under construction, and promote the transformation of qualified emergency supply capacity into normal capacity. Guided by the demonstration coal mine, accelerate the intelligent construction, upgrading and transformation of coal mine. Deepen coal mine safety transformation. Scientifically plan and build advanced coal-fired power units, arrange a certain scale of supporting power supply to ensure the safety of power supply and regulatory power supply to promote the consumption of new energy, maintain a reasonable margin of installed capacity, and strictly implement the latest technical standards such as coal consumption for new projects. Promote the implementation of supporting policies such as electricity price, tax and loan for coal-fired power enterprises, and encourage coal-fired power enterprises to transform into "power generation +" comprehensive energy service-oriented enterprises and multi energy complementary enterprises.
Surging news noted that since this year, China's raw coal production has maintained a rapid growth and imports have decreased significantly. According to the data of the National Bureau of statistics, the policy of increasing coal production and supply has been strengthened since March, and the main coal producing provinces and regions have made every effort to tap the potential and expand capacity and supply. In March, 396 million tons of raw coal were produced, with a year-on-year increase of 14.8%, 4.5 percentage points faster than that from January to February, and the average daily output was 12.77 million tons. Imported coal was 16.42 million tons, down 39.9% year-on-year, 25.9 percentage points higher than that from January to February. In the first quarter, 1.08 billion tons of raw coal were produced, with a year-on-year increase of 10.3%. 51.81 million tons of coal were imported, a year-on-year decrease of 24.2%.
Strengthening the role of coal / coal power supply does not mean slowing down the process of green transformation. As for the role orientation of coal-fired power, the action plan for carbon peak before 2030 released by the State Council in October 2021 defines its transformation direction: strictly control new coal-fired power projects, meet the coal consumption standard of new units to the international advanced level, orderly eliminate the backward production capacity of coal-fired power, accelerate the energy-saving upgrading and flexible transformation of active units, actively promote the transformation of heating, and promote the transformation of coal-fired power to both basic guarantee and system regulatory power. Strictly control the scale of coal-fired power supporting the trans regional transmission of renewable energy power, and the proportion of renewable energy power in the new channel shall not be less than 50% in principle.
