Rural electric power reform and development

Innovation of rural hydropower industry

1. External environment for rural hydropower industry innovation

At present, almost all parts of the world are developing local rural hydropower. The development of rural hydropower has developed from the previous demand-oriented to the construction of high-quality clean energy for the purpose of promoting social sustainable development, to the industrial innovation based on the theory of distributed power generation and supply, to the anti-monopoly pillar in the reform of rural power system, and to the large-scale development based on technological innovation and operating according to the laws of market economy. Driven by these comprehensive factors, the global rural hydropower has developed rapidly, and the total installed capacity of small hydropower alone is estimated to reach hundreds of millions of kilowatts, involving all aspects of rural social and economic activities. Different from other situations where there are only a few isolated power plants, rural hydropower is no longer just a branch of the power industry, but has increasingly become an independent industry.

Under the new situation, the rural hydropower industry urgently needs innovation because:

1) The rural hydropower industry will enter a new period of vigorous development, and the development of rural hydropower has a new impetus. Power shortage has always been the main factor restricting the economic development of underdeveloped countries and regions. Rural hydropower plays an important role in the economic development of many countries because of its mature technology, small investment scale and abundant local resources. However, due to the mistaken belief that coal and oil resources have been exhausted, centralized power supply at the expense of the environment has gradually gained a monopoly position, making rural hydropower once stagnant. It can be seen that the demand-oriented development based solely on solving the power shortage cannot guarantee the sustainable development of rural hydropower.

In recent years, as environmental protection has increasingly become a global concern, the utilization of renewable energy has attracted more and more attention. In order to encourage the use of renewable energy, many countries give support to renewable energy power generation. There are two main ways for EU countries to support this, namely, direct price support and indirect support. Direct price support includes payment of subsidy for electricity sales per kWh, implementation of investment assistance and tax exemption. Indirect support mainly emphasizes public support for renewable energy. When purchasing electricity, it is stipulated to purchase a certain proportion of electricity produced by renewable energy with higher price. The EU stipulates that renewable energy will account for more than 22% of the total power generation by 20 10. Under these preferential conditions, developed countries are more interested than developing countries, and the areas covered by large power grids are much more developed than remote mountainous areas. People's concern for social sustainable development has become a new driving force for rural hydropower development.

2) Great changes have taken place in the external environment of rural hydropower development and reform. The reform of anti-monopoly and deregulation in power industry has brought rare opportunities to the development of rural hydropower. Whether in Europe or the United States, the speed of power system reform is so fast, such as power futures market, power joint sales, independent power grid operator system, emission trading, distributed power supply and so on. Power industry management and technological innovation emerge one after another. The ultimate beneficiaries of this reform are consumers and the power industry itself, so it is necessary to carry out industry policy research.

In addition, due to the technical progress focusing on the popularization and application of information technology and automation technology, the infrastructure can be used to a level close to the limit, and high-quality services can be provided according to the special requirements of different users, which greatly reduces the specific daily maintenance work of power enterprises. For example, the application of unattended technology makes the operation and management of power plants simple, so that more energy can be devoted to the reform and development of rural power industry, which also promotes industry innovation.

3) Theoretical issues related to the development of rural hydropower industry need to be studied urgently. For example:

-How to distinguish between commercial enterprises with centralized power supply and small rural power enterprises with decentralized power supply? Can rural hydropower enterprises be treated as special non-profit enterprises like some countries?

-In the power system reform, power supply enterprises can choose users, and users can also choose power supply enterprises freely. Can users of rural hydropower supply areas, hydropower plants and rural power supply stations organize themselves and set up their own local power companies as stipulated in the American Power User Rights Law?

-What is the impact of the reform of separating power plants from power networks, and the cancellation of the concession power supply area in the power system with centralized power supply from a few isolated large factories on the rural power system with multiple rural hydropower stations supplying power in sections? And how to develop the integrated power supply market and local power grid in rural hydropower supply areas?

-On the eve of China's imminent accession to the WTO, how to integrate with the international community, break the monopoly of industries, administrations, departments and companies, and how to develop rural hydropower as a high-quality power source more effectively through legislation on rural electricity and renewable energy?

These problems from practice require people to conduct in-depth research and discussion.

2. Industrial innovation based on distributed generation and power supply theory.

For a long time, people have realized in practice that reasonably planned power supply points can bring many benefits to society and users, including saving costs, improving the environment and improving the reliability of power supply. In recent years, due to the public's increasing concern for social sustainable development, people may reduce the traditional services of power companies, and the theory of distributed power generation and power supply came into being.

Distributed power generation refers to any power generation connected with distribution facilities. The distributed power generation defined by Texas legislation in the United States refers to "power generation equipment with capacity less than 10MW and access voltage less than 60kV"? Quot also stipulates that distributed generation can run out of the power grid to meet all the needs of users, sell surplus electricity to the power grid when necessary, or buy electricity from the power grid when the electricity cannot meet the needs of users, which is exactly the same as the management model of small hydropower system in China. Explore the reasons for the rise of the current global distributed generation and power supply theory, roughly as follows:

The traditional centralized power supply mode is increasingly challenged. Since the 1990s, the increasing global attention to environmental protection has restricted the development and utilization of fossil fuels. The United Nations Framework Treaty on Global Climate Change requires that in the next half century, the existing fossil fuel power generation, which accounts for 80% of the global electricity output, will be reduced to about 25%, which will lead to the gradual elimination of conventional coal-fired power generation and its replacement by renewable energy. In addition, large-scale hydropower development is becoming increasingly difficult. The traditional centralized power supply mode based on traditional large-scale hydro-thermal power is increasingly difficult to be accepted by people.

The trend of miniaturization and decentralization of power supply development. The development of renewable energy power generation technologies such as small hydropower, solar photovoltaic power generation and wind power generation makes the power supply tend to be miniaturized and decentralized. According to the prediction of the International Energy Agency, renewable energy power generation will be the fastest developing clean energy in the next 50 years. The power generation capacity of this decentralized mode will exceed the total installed capacity of large power plants all over the world, forming a way of combining countless small power sources with large and medium-sized networks or local area networks or distributed direct power supply, which will revolutionize the existing power industry system.

Centralized power supply is not always applicable, and in many cases, only decentralized power supply can be implemented. At present, about 2 billion people in the world do not have access to electricity, and it is estimated that 2 billion people will be added in the next 25 years. Due to historical reasons, most of these people are in rural areas of developing countries, and the load density in rural areas is bound to be very low. The expansion of power grid is obviously unreasonable in economy and technology, and the power supply area at the end of large power grid is also unstable. Finally, they can only rely on decentralized power supply. In addition, some people think that solving the problem of rural electricity consumption in the world is mainly an economic problem. Only by decentralized power supply, relying on the development of local national economy, and local governments mainly bear the construction funds, can it be gradually realized.

This theoretical innovation of distributed power generation and supply is of great significance. It not only breaks the shackles of the traditional centralized power supply mode, but also provides a theoretical basis for small hydropower stations with decentralized power supply in rural areas to have their own power supply areas and their own local power grids, and to establish a unified small hydropower market with integrated generation, supply and use in the reform of separating the power supply system from the power supply network and canceling the exclusive power supply areas. At present, we are making a comparative study of this innovation in the management system of the world power industry under the Ministry of Water and Electricity.

3. Innovation of non-profit rural power enterprises

Take the rural power cooperatives in the United States as an example. All rural power cooperatives operate in a non-profit way. American legislation recognizes the difference between rural power cooperatives and different power companies owned by the public or investors, and allows rural power generation and distribution cooperatives to exist as a special enterprise form. The American Power User Rights Act also recognizes that all users have the following rights:

-Users have the right to reliable, reasonable and safe power supply;

-Users have the right to organize the establishment and operation of non-profit power institutions owned by users, including the construction of power systems owned by users according to their own needs;

-These non-profit power institutions owned by users have the right to be treated fairly and to exist as a special type of enterprise to distinguish them from investor-owned or public power companies.

It can be seen that the main feature of the rural power system in the United States is owned by the objects it serves. Non-profit rural power cooperatives organized by users are self-built, self-managed and self-owned. The so-called "own" means that the rural power system is owned by users in the power supply area. According to the policy of "whoever invests owns it", users are also owners and realize their own power supply. Due to the integration of supply and demand, the problems existing in power cooperatives such as electricity price and service quality have been effectively solved, and the property rights and power supply areas of rural power systems have remained basically unchanged, thus stabilizing the rural power market. "Self-management" refers to the daily management of the rural power system by representatives elected by users, and the rural power cooperative holds a user meeting every year to implement democratic management. The staff of cooperatives widely represent the opinions of community users, which makes the management of rural power system more and more perfect. "Self-built" means that the rural power system is built by the American Agricultural Power Bureau. Power supply is either self-sufficient by power generation and transmission cooperatives, or wholesale from power plants owned by the federal government or private power plants owned by investors according to power supply agreements. This policy of self-construction, self-management and self-management has aroused the enthusiasm of local users in rural areas, solved the problem of rural electricity consumption well, and put little pressure on the central financial funds.

Different from ordinary power companies. Although the shares of power companies are also controlled by shareholders, these shareholders are not users. The interests of shareholders and users are completely different. Shareholders naturally want to get greater returns, while users want to get lower electricity prices and better services. Because the users who receive services in rural electric power cooperatives are also the owners of the partnership, the public power supply areas and cooperatives are all owned and managed locally, which can better adapt to the characteristics of rural local users and improve the effective management of the power system.

It is also different from domestic small hydropower enterprises. For a long time, the property rights and ownership of small hydropower stations in China have not been very clear, let alone owned by users. Therefore, small hydropower stations and their rural power supply areas are easily "leveled" by policies or occupied by power companies. In addition, under the new conditions, small hydropower stations in China have to participate in the so-called "fair" competition with large power companies, instead of treating rural power cooperatives as special enterprises as in the United States. The competition between small non-profit hydropower stations with spontaneous self-power supply and large commercial power companies can only result in the monopoly of the market by large power companies, which makes the power system farther and farther away from local users in rural areas, and it is difficult for power companies to break the monopoly of rural power.

4. Power market management innovation driven by economic globalization

Economic globalization has broken the monopoly of the power market and made the power industry develop rapidly as never before. This practice is most obvious in European countries. The EU announced the opening of the electricity market in 1997, and all EU member states opened the electricity market in February 1999 to encourage competition. 1999 Since May, Amsterdam Power Exchange has been officially launched as a current loan power market, which is open not only to the Netherlands, but also to power traders in Germany and Belgium. Scandinavian countries have also established a * * * electricity market, and Germany can also trade electricity in this market. Mediterranean countries plan to realize power grid interconnection in the near future, so that power supply will develop from traditional domestic planned dispatching to power futures or real-time transnational trading. In addition, the electricity price is no longer determined by the way of "cost plus profit", but by competitive access to the internet, and the electricity price is determined by the market, and the trading mode of the electricity market has changed rapidly.

At the same time, a "green energy revolution" called emissions trading is quietly emerging. In order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the European Union has stipulated emission standards and emissions of various countries. The European Union also stipulates that if a country's emissions are not up to standard, it can buy this kind of green energy from other countries to offset the amount, which makes a new situation of renewable energy quota and emissions trading in the power market besides electricity trading, which is another feature of power market management.

The integration of power market brought by economic globalization determines that the power of power system reform must come from outside, which is another feature of power market development. From France's opposition to the EU directive to the compulsory liberalization of the electricity market, and from the United States relying on politicians to promote the reform of the hydropower development and operation license system, this has proved this point. This kind of reform and development can not be achieved by self-improvement under the monopoly of power market, nor can it be completely controlled by a company, a region or even a country. Before China is about to join the WTO, we must make full preparations for this.

Under the general trend of economic globalization, the international exchange and cooperation of rural hydropower industry has also become unprecedented frequent. In recent years, the International Small Hydropower Center has made full use of its own advantages to provide good services, and carried out some activities in technology introduction, equipment export, organizing foreign special research, undertaking foreign projects, and establishing bases in Chenzhou, Hunan, Dingxi, Gansu and Sichuan. * * * Work together to promote rural hydropower management innovation and promote the further development of small hydropower.