State Grid vigorously develops ultra-high voltage to promote clean energy consumption and reduce haze

Developing ultra-high voltage power grids is the State Grid Corporation of China's unwavering commitment to political, economic, and social responsibilities, and it is also a path of development with Chinese characteristics based on national conditions and innovation. The development of ultra-high voltage power grids is a major measure taken by State Grid Corporation of China to provide energy security for realizing the Chinese Dream, and it is also a practical need to eliminate the "heart and lung disease" and build a beautiful China.

（1） The haze locks the country. The intuitive feeling and "breathing pain" of hundreds of millions of Chinese people unable to see the blue sky and white clouds serve as a profound warning of the urgency of economic development, transformation, and upgrading. Starting from the strategic height of national economy, people's livelihood, and sustainable development, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council have placed ecological civilization construction in an unprecedented prominent position. How to control haze affects everyone's nerves.

Looking down at the Earth from space, China's figure has become blurred, with over one-seventh of the country's land area appearing gray, and severe haze has spread to most parts of central and eastern China. Remote sensing monitoring by the Satellite Center of the Ministry of Environmental Protection shows that the haze coverage area reaches 1.43 million square kilometers.

From official government conferences at different levels, television and print media, to street discussions among citizens, haze is an unavoidable topic. On Weibo and social networks, countless complaints and "random photos" from netizens are all recording the degree of air pollution.

Making the blue sky no longer a luxury is the aspiration of the people. Faced with the complex problem of haze, people can't help but ask: What is our response strategy?

The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China declared to the whole society the determination of the Chinese government to control pollution by establishing a comprehensive ecological civilization system and protecting the ecological environment through institutional measures. At this year's National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Premier Li Keqiang strongly pointed out that we must resolutely declare war on pollution, just like declaring war on poverty. Declare war on the haze, not wait for the wind and rain, take the initiative to attack.

Last September, the State Council issued and implemented the Action Plan for Air Pollution Prevention and Control, proposing to accelerate the adjustment of energy structure, increase clean energy supply, control total coal consumption, and comprehensively eliminate and replace inefficient and heavily polluting traditional energy consumption methods.

At the State Council executive meeting held on February 12th this year, the first response measure proposed to "fight a tough and long-lasting battle against air pollution" was to accelerate the adjustment of energy structure, while "implementing cross regional power transmission projects" was considered the top priority and the first content of this measure. Among the 12 cross regional power transmission channels planned and constructed by the National Energy Administration, there are 4 ultra-high voltage DC lines and 4 ultra-high voltage AC lines.

Crisis is the best ruler for considering road patterns. In this "respiratory defense battle" to eliminate people's "heart and lung diseases", ultra-high voltage, as a "weapon" for cross regional transmission of clean electricity, has attracted the attention of the central leadership and once again entered the public's vision, becoming a social expectation.

（2） The large-scale outbreak of haze is the last straw to crush the extensive economic growth model, and it is also an urgent warning signal for China's energy structure transformation.

Thinking determines the way out, direction determines success or failure.

The path dependence theory suggests that once people make a certain choice, it is like walking on a fixed track, and the force of inertia will continuously reinforce this choice and make it easy for people to not get out. The choice of which path to control haze will determine the ultimate effectiveness.

The Track of History: Why the CPC Can Write: It is undeniable that industrious and intelligent Chinese people have made amazing achievements in just a few decades, but also buried obstacles on the way forward. The most prominent obstacle is that China's economic development model is still extensive, with a high investment rate, abnormally low consumption rate, and relatively low total factor productivity. This growth model has brought enormous pressure to China's limited resources and fragile environment, and urgently needs to be transformed.

How should transformation take place?

The causes of haze are multifaceted, and the essence of its problems is closely related to the energy consumption structure. On January 4, 2013, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China Meteorological Administration jointly released the "2013 Green Book on Climate Change", which stated that the significant increase in persistent haze in China is mainly due to the increase in atmospheric pollutant emissions caused by the consumption of fossil fuels. Related studies have shown that the intensity and duration of haze in the central and eastern regions of China are highly consistent with the intensity of coal consumption in the region, as well as with the installed capacity of coal-fired power plants.

"The serious haze currently appearing in our country is essentially the long-term accumulation and concentrated exposure of the contradiction between the 'inherent deficiency' of energy resources endowment and the 'acquired imbalance' of energy development mode." Liu Zhenya, Chairman and Party Secretary of State Grid Corporation of China, pointed out straightforwardly that the fundamental way to deal with haze is to transform energy development mode and adjust structure. The key is to reduce the proportion of coal consumption, vigorously develop clean energy, and optimize the power structure and layout. The key is to accelerate the development of ultra-high voltage power grids, promote the "one special and four major" strategy and the strategy of electricity substitution, transform the energy development mode, and achieve the strategic transformation of China's energy from mainly relying on fossil energy and clean energy as auxiliary to mainly relying on clean energy and fossil energy as auxiliary.

Transformation must break the local balance of electricity consumption pattern. Once, power plants were built wherever there was a shortage of electricity. The development model of coal-fired power, which is mainly based on on-site balance, has led to a cumulative effect of problems. The Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Beijing Tianjin Hebei regions in China account for 8% of the country's population, but consume over 40% of energy and about 50% of fuel. The environmental capacity continues to operate at an overload, and PM2.5 concentration values frequently explode. Large scale and long-distance coal transportation to the central and eastern regions is still causing multiple air pollution due to transportation and storage. Data shows that the air pollution within 120 meters on both sides of the coal transportation railway exceeds the national second level air quality standard by 8 times, and the air pollution within 1 kilometer of the coal storage yard exceeds the national second level air quality standard by 2.6 times.

Transformation requires reducing the proportion of consumption of fossil fuels such as coal. Affected by resource endowment, coal has always been the main energy source and important industrial raw material in China. In 2013, coal consumption accounted for 66% of energy consumption in China, while coal consumption in the United States and Japan remained around 25% in primary energy. Currently, about 80% of the main atmospheric pollutants in China, including sulfur dioxide, 60% of nitrogen oxides, and 50% of fine particulate matter, come from coal combustion. Nearly half of the combustion emissions come from direct coal combustion, which is the main component of PM2.5.

Transformation requires accelerating the development of clean energy. China has abundant clean energy resources, with 600 million kilowatts of hydropower available for development; The exploitable resources for wind and solar energy are 2.5 billion and 2.7 billion kilowatts respectively, equivalent to 1.8 billion kilowatts of conventional thermal power. Accelerating the development of these clean energy sources can increase the proportion of non fossil fuels in China from 9.8% in 2013 to 15% in 2020. If wind and solar power can maintain an annual growth rate of over 12%, the proportion of clean energy in China can increase to around 50% by the middle of this century.

Wang Jian, Deputy Director of the Pollution Prevention and Control Department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, bluntly stated that the path of pollution control is clear, and the key lies in how to do it. We need to further increase the adjustment of industrial and energy structures, and implement the task of controlling total coal consumption.