One view is that although Sichuan is now fully transmitting electricity to ensure electricity consumption, the decline in hydropower far exceeds the maximum transmission power of the transmission network. It can also be seen that there is a gap in the full-load operation of local thermal power.
It turns out that hydropower is not necessarily a stable energy source either. The local area does not consider the superposition of dry season and peak electricity consumption, and there is little thermal power planning. You must know that electricity is basically how much it is generated and how much is used, and thermal power can also control the amount of electricity a little…
I disagree with this point of view. The main reason is that there is no shortage of hydropower in Sichuan all year round and it saves money. It is difficult to make a return for more thermal power. This year is characterized by extreme high temperature and drought, which no one expected.
In fact, hydropower relies on storage capacity to adjust the output to balance the uneven distribution of electricity consumption over time (including pumped storage), which is more efficient and environmentally friendly than thermal power and nuclear power (thermal power and nuclear power require additional braking, frequent adjustment is more expensive).
Sichuan’s electricity regulation and storage has been doing very well, because there is a lot of water and electricity, and the total storage capacity is large. Due to the high temperature this year, many reservoirs have not reached the normal water storage level, and some of them have even fallen to the dead water level, causing most hydropower stations to lose their ability to regulate and store electricity, but this is not the same as the inability to store electricity.
It should be noted that the current problem in Sichuan is that the power supply cannot keep up with the lack of precipitation in a short period of time. However, when we look at Sichuan’s 14th Five-Year Energy Plan, the main energy source is still hydropower, and the scale of wind power and photovoltaics is about the same as that of hydropower. Or from the perspective of energy reserves, Sichuan’s hydropower resources are too rich, and wind power and photovoltaics are slightly insufficient in terms of quality and total amount.
Sichuan suffers from high temperature and drought, causing controversy: Facts prove that hydropower is not a stable energy source? Many people always talk about energy transformation, insufficient thermal power, etc. This is a typical post-mortem Zhuge Liang. It seems that before the energy transformation, Sichuan’s power generation was not dominated by hydropower, and Sichuan’s previous power grid structure was sufficient to deal with the current problems.
Post time: Sep-02-2022
