POWER January 2012 - 52

POWER IN CHINA
ing coal the same distance. By balancing the
amount of coal transported to plants in the
northwestern areas with the amount of electricity
moved to the east, China's energy supply
security is improved in the eastern and
central regions. This approach also optimizes
the use of energy, land, and environmental resources
while promoting development of regional
economies. According to the proposed
program, new transmission will account for
20% of energy export in western areas.
Accelerating the regional optimization of
coal-fired power requires mutual cooperation
between supply-side and demand-side regions.
Eastern areas lacking energy must receive coal,
wind, and hydro power from western areas. In
order to meet increased electricity demand
and environmental protection requirements,
it is important to control new coal power installations
and focus development on nuclear,
hydro, solar, and pumped storage plants. In
addition, power development regions and
demand-side regions should actively seek
government support and establish strategic cooperation
mechanisms to ensure an economic
and reliable power supply.
Goal 3: Rationally Allocate
Peaking Power
Coal-fired power is the foundation of China's
power generation structure. Northern plants
account for a large portion of coal installation
capacity and run-of-water hydropower plants,
which makes regulating peak load difficult.
With rapid development of wind power, especially
given its intermittent nature, power
systems must have peaking power. Due to
peak-shaving difficulties, the output limits
of wind power are very serious in low-load
periods. Therefore, China needs to construct
gas-fired power and pumped storage power
stations to meet system peaking demand.
Gas-Fired Power. Compared with coal
power, gas-fired power has advantages in reducing
carbon emissions. Natural gas generators,
good at peak shaving, can start fast and
adjust flexibly. However, domestic natural
gas resources are limited, and supply capacity
is inadequate. The trends of China's natural
gas production and reserve-production
ratio are shown in Figure 5.
We can see from Figure 5 that the reserve-production
ratio of natural gas shows a downward
trend, which means that China's dependency on
gas imports will increase even more. The 2009
China Energy Development Blue Book, released
by the Academy of Social Sciences, estimates
China's natural gas consumption in 2010 was
120 billion cubic meters and will rise to 200
billion cubic meters in 2015 (Figure 6). China's
2010 natural gas supply and demand gap was
20 to 30 billion cubic meters, with imports accounting
for 20% of that amount.
52
For More Details
The following sources provided data for this
article. Some URLs have been shortened
for easier presentation without breaking in
print. Unless otherwise indicated, the web
pages are available in English.
1. State Council, 2011. The Twelfth FiveYear
Plan for National Economic and
Social Development. (Chinese: http://
tinyurl.com/72hroob)
2. National Development and Reform Commission,
2010. Long-Term Development
Plan for Renewable Energy. Beijing.
(Chinese: http://tinyurl.com/cgpt8e8)
3. National Grid Energy Research Institute,
2011. Studies on the Development of
Clean Energy by State Grid Corporation.
Beijing. (http://tinyurl.com/86bz5hv)
4. China Electricity Council, 2011. Report
on the Development of China's Power Industry.
Beijing. (http://tj.cec.org.cn/)
See also CEC report on China's electricity
supply and demand analysis and economic
forecasts (2010-2011). (http://
tinyurl.com/7gqzfr3)
5. Fanxian Yun, Jining Chen, Fu Sun, Siyu
Zeng, and Can Wang. " Trend of Technology
Innovation in China's Coal-fired
Electricity Industry Under Resource and
Environmental Constraints. " Elsevier:
Energy Policy (39) 2011. (http://tinyurl.
com/7ywramt)
6. State Grid Corp., 2011. The Twelfth FiveYear
Plan for Center Power Enterprises.
(http://tinyurl.com/7kuv9la)
7. National Bureau of Statistics of China,
2011. Series Report of the Economic
and Social Achievements: New Development,
New Leap Forward, New Episode.
(http://tinyurl.com/7wr2qq8)
5. The production and use of natural gas in China, 1991-2007. Source: China
Statistical Yearbook, 1991-2007
Production
600
500
400
300
200
100
Available reserve
Reserve-production ratio
1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
6. China's supply and demand of natural gas, 2008-2020. By 2015, China's
gap between gas supply and demand is expected to rise to about 55 billion cubic meters.
Source: 2009 China Energy Development Blue Book, Academy of Social Sciences
Natural gas supply
250
200
150
100
50
2008
www.powermag.com
2010
2015E
2020E
POWER | January 2012
Natural gas consumption
Billion cubic meters
Production (100 million m3) and
reserve production ratio
Available reserve (100 million m3)
http://tj.cec.org.cn/ http://http:// http://www.tinyurl.com/7gqzfr3 http://http:// http://www.tinyurl.com/72hroob http://tinyurl http://www.tinyurl.com/cgpt8e8 http://www.tinyurl.com/7kuv9la http://www.tinyurl.com/86bz5hv http://www.tinyurl.com/7wr2qq8 http://www.powermag.com
POWER January 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER January 2012
