China is a developing country with the largest population and the largest coal consumption in the world. To achieve the goal of “carbon peak and carbon neutrality” (hereinafter referred to as the “dual carbon” goal”) as scheduled, the arduous tasks and challenges are unprecedented. How to fight this tough battle, win this big test, and realize green and low-carbon development, there are still many important issues that need to be clarified, one of which is how to understand my country’s small hydropower.
So, is the realization of the “dual-carbon” goal of small hydropower a dispensable option? Is the ecological impact of small hydropower big or bad? Are the problems of some small hydropower stations an unsolvable “ecological disaster”? Has my country’s small hydropower been “over-exploited”? These questions urgently need scientific and rational thinking and answers.
Vigorously developing renewable energy and accelerating the construction of a new power system that adapts to a high proportion of renewable energy is the consensus and action of the current international energy transition, and it is also a strategic choice for my country to achieve the “dual carbon” goal.
General Secretary Xi Jinping said at the Climate Ambition Summit and the recent Leaders Climate Summit at the end of last year: “Non-fossil energy will account for about 25% of primary energy consumption in 2030, and the total installed capacity of wind and solar power will reach more than 1.2 billion kilowatts. “China will strictly control coal power projects.”
To achieve this and ensure the safety and reliability of power supply at the same time, whether my country’s hydropower resources can be fully developed and developed first plays a vital role. The reasons are as follows:
The first is to meet the requirement of 25% of non-fossil energy sources in 2030, and hydropower is indispensable. According to industry estimates, in 2030, my country’s non-fossil energy generation capacity must reach more than 4.6 trillion kilowatt-hours per year. By then, wind power and solar energy installed capacity will accumulate 1.2 billion kilowatts, plus the existing hydropower, nuclear power and other non-fossil energy generation capacity. There is a power gap of about 1 trillion kilowatt-hours. In fact, the power generation capacity of the hydropower resources that can be developed in my country is as high as 3 trillion kilowatt-hours per year. The current level of development is less than 44% (equivalent to the loss of 1.7 trillion kilowatt-hours of power generation per year). If it can reach the current average of developed countries Up to 80% of the level of hydropower development can add 1.1 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, which not only fills the power gap, but also greatly enhances our water security capabilities such as flood defense and drought, water supply and irrigation. Because hydropower and water conservancy are inseparable as a whole, the ability to regulate and control water resources is too low for my country to lag behind developed countries in Europe and America.
The second is to solve the random volatility problem of wind power and solar energy, and hydropower is also inseparable. In 2030, the proportion of installed wind power and solar power in the power grid will increase from less than 25% to at least 40%. Wind power and solar power are both intermittent power generation, and the higher the proportion, the higher the requirements for grid energy storage. Among all the current energy storage methods, pumped storage, which has a history of more than one hundred years, is the most mature technology, the best economic choice, and the potential for large-scale development. As of the end of 2019, 93.4% of the world’s energy storage projects are pumped storage, and 50% of the installed capacity of pumped storage is concentrated in developed countries in Europe and America. Using “full development of water energy” as the “super battery” for the large-scale development of wind power and solar energy and turning it into a stable and controllable high-quality energy is an important experience of the current international carbon emission reduction leaders. At present, my country’s installed pumped storage capacity accounts for only 1.43% of the grid, which is a major shortcoming that restricts the realization of the “dual carbon” goal.
Small hydropower accounts for one-fifth of my country’s total developable hydropower resources (equivalent to six Three Gorges power stations). Not only its own power generation and emission reduction contributions cannot be ignored, but more importantly, many small hydropower plants distributed throughout the country It can be transformed into a pumped-storage power station and become an indispensable important support for “a new power system that adapts to a high proportion of wind power and solar energy into the grid.”
However, my country’s small hydropower has encountered the impact of “one size fits all demolition” in some areas when the resource potential has not yet been fully developed. The developed countries, which are far more developed than ours, are still struggling to tap the potential of small hydropower. For example, in April 2021, US Vice President Harris publicly stated: “The previous war was to fight for oil, and the next war was to fight for water. Biden’s infrastructure bill will focus on water conservancy, which will bring employment. It is also related to the resources that we rely on for our livelihoods. Investing in this “precious commodity” water will strengthen the United States’ national power.” Switzerland, where hydropower development is as high as 97%, will do everything possible to make use of it regardless of the size of the river or the height of the drop. , By building long tunnels and pipelines along the mountains, the hydropower resources scattered in the mountains and streams will be concentrated in the reservoirs and then fully utilized.
In recent years, small hydropower has been denounced as the prime culprit for “damaging the ecology”. Some people even advocated that “all small hydropower stations on the tributaries of the Yangtze River should be demolished.” Opposing small hydropower seems to be “fashionable.”
Regardless of the two major ecological benefits of small hydropower to my country’s carbon emission reduction and the “replacement of firewood with electricity” in rural areas, there are a few basic common senses that should not be vague when it comes to the ecological protection of rivers that social public opinion is concerned about. It’s easy to step into “ecological ignorance”-treat destruction as “protection” and retrogression as “development”.
One is that a river that flows naturally and is free from any constraints is by no means a blessing but a disaster for mankind. Humans live by water and let rivers flow freely, which is equivalent to letting floods overflow freely during periods of high water, and letting rivers dry up freely during periods of low water. It is precisely because the number of occurrences and deaths of floods and droughts are the highest among all natural disasters, the governance of river floods has always been regarded as a major issue of governance in China and abroad. Damping and hydroelectric power technology have made a qualitative leap in the ability to control river floods. River flooding and flooding have been regarded as irresistible natural destructive power since ancient times, and they have become human control. , Harness the power and make it beneficial to society (irrigate fields, gain momentum, etc.). Therefore, building dams and enclosing water for landscaping is the progress of human civilization, and the removal of all dams will allow humans to return to the barbaric state of “relying on heaven for food, resignation, and passive attachment to nature”.
Second, the good ecological environment of developed countries and regions is largely due to the construction of river dams and the full development of hydropower. At present, apart from building reservoirs and dams, mankind has no other means to fundamentally solve the contradiction of the uneven distribution of natural water resources in time and space. The ability to regulate and control water resources marked by the degree of hydropower development and per capita storage capacity does not exist internationally. Line”, on the contrary, the higher the better. Developed countries in Europe and the United States have basically completed the cascade development of river hydropower as early as the middle of the 20th century, and their average hydropower development level and per capita storage capacity are twice and five times that of my country, respectively. Practice has long proven that hydropower projects are not “intestinal obstruction” of rivers, but “sphincter muscles” necessary to maintain health. The level of cascade hydropower development is much higher than that of the Danube, Rhine, Columbia, Mississippi, Tennessee and other major European and American rivers of the Yangtze River, all of which are beautiful, economically prosperous, and harmonious places with people and water.
The third is the dehydration and interruption of river sections caused by partial diversion of small hydropower, which is poor management rather than inherent defect. Diversion hydropower station is a kind of technology for high-efficiency utilization of water energy which is widespread at home and abroad. Due to the early construction of some diversion-type small hydropower projects in my country, the planning and design were not scientific enough. At that time, there was no awareness and management methods to ensure “ecological flow”, which led to excessive water use for power generation and the river section between plants and dams (mostly several kilometers in length). The phenomenon of dehydration and dry-up of rivers in some dozens of kilometers) has been widely criticized by public opinion. Undoubtedly, dehydration and dry-flow are definitely not good for river ecology, but to solve the problem, we can’t slap the board, cause and effect mismatch, and put the cart before the horse. Two facts must be clarified: First, my country’s natural geographical conditions determine that many rivers are seasonal. Even if there is no hydropower station, the river channel will be dehydrated and dry during the dry season (this is the reason why both ancient and modern China and foreign countries have paid special attention to the construction of water conservancy and the accumulation of abundance and dryness). Water does not pollute water, and the dehydration and cut-off caused by some diversion-type small hydropower can be completely solved through technological transformation and strengthened supervision. In the past two years, domestic diversion-type small hydropower has completed the technical transformation of “24-hour continuous discharge of ecological flow”, and established a strict real-time online monitoring system and supervision platform.
Therefore, there is an urgent need to rationally understand the important value of small hydropower to the ecological protection of small and medium-sized rivers: it not only guarantees the ecological flow of the original river, but also reduces the hazards of flash floods, and also meets the livelihood needs of water supply and irrigation. At present, small hydropower can only generate electricity when there is excess water after ensuring the ecological flow of the river. It is precisely because of the existence of cascade power stations that the original slope is very steep and it is difficult to store water except in the rainy season. Instead, it is stepped. The ground retains water and greatly improves the ecology. The nature of small hydropower is an important infrastructure that is indispensable for ensuring the livelihood of small and medium-sized villages and towns and regulating and controlling water resources of small and medium-sized rivers. Due to problems with poor management of some power stations, all small hydropower is forcibly demolished, which is questionable.
The central government has made it clear that carbon peaking and carbon neutrality should be included in the overall layout of ecological civilization construction. During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, my country’s ecological civilization construction will focus on reducing carbon as a key strategic direction. We must unswervingly follow the path of high-quality development with ecological priority, green and low-carbon. Ecological environmental protection and economic development are dialectically unified and complementary.
How local governments should accurately understand and truly implement the policies and requirements of the central government. Fujian Xiadang Small Hydropower has made a good interpretation of this.
Xiadang Township in Ningde, Fujian used to be a particularly poor township and “Five No Townships” (no roads, no running water, no lighting, no fiscal revenue, no government office space) in eastern Fujian. Using local water resources to build a power station is “equivalent to catching a chicken that can lay eggs.” In 1989, when local finances were very tight, the Ningde Prefectural Committee allocated 400,000 yuan to build small hydropower. Since then, the lower party has bid farewell to the history of bamboo strips and pine resin lighting. The irrigation of more than 2,000 acres of farmland has also been solved, and the people have begun to ponder the way to get rich, forming the two pillar industries of tea and tourism. With the improvement of people’s living standards and demand for electricity, the Xiadang Small Hydropower Company has carried out efficiency expansion and upgrading and transformation several times. This diversion-type power station of “damaging the river and circumventing water for landscaping” is now continuously discharged for 24 hours. The ecological flow ensures that the downstream rivers are clear and smooth, showing a beautiful picture of poverty alleviation, rural revitalization, and green and low-carbon development. The development of small hydropower to drive the economy of one party, protect the environment, and benefit the people of one party is exactly the portrayal of small hydropower in many rural and remote areas of our country.
However, in some parts of the country, “the removal of small hydropower across the board” and “speeding up the withdrawal of small hydropower” are regarded as “ecological restoration and ecological protection”. This practice has caused serious adverse effects on economic and social development, and urgent attention is needed and corrections should be made as soon as possible. for example:
The first is to bury major safety hazards for the safety of the lives and property of the local people. Almost 90% of dam failures in the world occur in reservoir dams without hydropower stations. The practice of keeping the dam of the reservoir but dismantling the hydropower unit violates science and is tantamount to losing the most effective safety guarantee in terms of technology and daily safety management of the dam.
Second, regions that have already achieved the peak of electricity carbon must increase coal power to make up for the shortage. The central government requires regions with conditions to take the lead in achieving the goal of reaching peaks. The removal of small hydropower across the board will inevitably increase the supply of coal and electricity in areas where the conditions for natural resources are not good, otherwise there will be a large gap, and some places may even suffer from electricity shortages.
The third is to severely damage natural landscapes and wetlands and reduce disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities in mountainous areas. With the removal of small hydropower, many scenic spots, wetland parks, crested ibis and other rare bird habitats that depended on the reservoir area will no longer exist. Without the energy dissipation of hydropower stations, it is impossible to alleviate the erosion and erosion of mountain valleys by rivers, and geological disasters such as landslides and mudslides will also increase.
Fourth, borrowing and dismantling power stations may generate financial risks and affect social stability. The withdrawal of small hydropower will require a large amount of compensation funds, which will put many state-level poor counties that have just taken off their hats on huge debts. If the compensation is not in place in time, it will lead to loan defaults. At present, there have been social conflicts and rights protection incidents in some places.
Hydropower is not only a clean energy recognized by the international community, but also has a water resource regulation and control function that cannot be replaced by any other project. Developed countries in Europe and the United States have never entered the “era of demolishing dams”. On the contrary, it is precisely because the level of hydropower development and per capita storage capacity is much higher than that of our country. Promote the transformation of “100% renewable energy in 2050″ with low cost and higher efficiency.
In the past decade or so, due to the misleading of “demonization of hydropower,” many people’s understanding of hydropower has remained at a relatively low level. Some major hydropower projects related to the national economy and people’s livelihood have been cancelled or stranded. As a result, my country’s current water resources control capacity is only one-fifth of the average level of developed countries, and the amount of water available per capita has always been in a state of “extreme water shortage” by international standards, and the Yangtze River Basin is facing severe flood control and flood fighting almost every year. pressure. If the interference of “demonization of hydropower” is not eliminated, it will be even more difficult for us to implement the “dual carbon” goal due to the lack of contribution from hydropower.
Whether it is to maintain national water security and food security, or to fulfill my country’s solemn commitment to the international “dual-carbon” goal, hydropower development can no longer be delayed. It is absolutely necessary to clean up and reform the small hydropower industry, but it cannot be overkill and affect the overall situation, and it cannot be done across the board, let alone stop the subsequent development of small hydropower that has great resource potential. There is an urgent need to return to scientific rationality, to consolidate social consensus, to avoid detours and wrong paths, and to pay unnecessary social costs.
Post time: Aug-14-2021
