Discussion On "Improving Quality And Efficiency" Of New Energy Under "Two Rules"

  In order to standardize the grid-connected operation management and auxiliary service management of the power system, the former State Electricity Regulatory Commission issued the "Regulations on the Management of grid-connected Operation of Power Plants" and "Interim Measures for the Management of auxiliary Services of grid-connected Power Plants" in 2006, and each region formulated "two detailed rules" on this basis, which were revised several times in the middle. Under the background of the new era, in the process of accelerating the construction of a new power system with new energy as the main body, in December 2021, the National Energy Administration issued the "Regulations on the Management of Power grid-connected Operation" and "Measures for the Management of Power Auxiliary Services", and various regions and provinces timely revised the "two rules", especially in the construction of the auxiliary service market.

Figure 1 "Two Rules" regulatory framework diagram

Source: National Energy Administration

  The implementation and improvement of the "two rules" play a pivotal role in reducing the abandonment of new energy based on wind power and photovoltaic power generation and improving its consumption space, but with the rapid and large-scale grid-connection of new energy, the assessment cost and the proportion of auxiliary service sharing cost in the operation of new energy power generation enterprises have increased significantly. As a result, the relative decline of its benefits and the expected rate of return of the project are reduced. How new energy power generation enterprises continue to respond to the "two rules" assessment, improve the level of lean management, innovate and participate in auxiliary services, grasp the development trend of the power market, reduce costs and increase efficiency, and then promote the high-quality development of the industry is more urgent.

First, the situation: the assessment standards are becoming stricter, and the sharing of costs is increasing day by day

The grid-connected operation management policy has become stricter

  In order to reduce the operation risk of the power system and improve the control level, it is necessary to strictly manage the operation of various grid-connected entities. The "two detailed rules" are essentially that the government regulatory agencies authorize the power grid dispatching agencies to manage the grid-related behaviors of power generation enterprises, and use economic means to ensure the safety of the power system by converting the assessment score value into electricity charges (1000 yuan/minute).

FIG. 2 Structure diagram of grid-connected operation management regulations

Source: National Energy Administration "Regulations on the Administration of Electricity Grid-Connected Operation"

  Grid-connected operation management (FIG. 2) covers grid-connected subjects, main operation assessment indicators, operation management, information disclosure and supervision management, etc. The main assessment indicators for new energy enterprises include AGC/AVC, wind and solar power forecast, available electricity consumption, primary frequency modulation, automation and other five major items. From the evolution process of the "two rules" clauses over the years, the assessment standards continue to improve. For example, the 2023 version of the "two rules" of the Northwest Energy Supervision Bureau adjusted the assessment rules for the short-term prediction of wind power from the original daily forecast curve to the weighted amount of the daily forecast curve. The availability requirement of the wind-active power control system (AGC) is increased from 99% to 100%, the AGC response time requirement is adjusted from 120 seconds to 60 seconds, and the assessment penalty is determined according to the wind-active power prediction and the accuracy of AGC and deviation from the detailed rules.

The cost of electric auxiliary services is rising

  In the stable operation system of the power grid, in addition to the normal production, transmission and use of electric energy, the services provided by thermal power, hydropower, wind power, photovoltaic power generation and other grid-connected entities, new energy storage and adjustable load are called power auxiliary services, and the compensation mechanism of various types of power auxiliary services is shown in Table 1. The ways of providing electric auxiliary services are divided into basic electric auxiliary services and paid electric auxiliary services. Basic electric auxiliary services are the obligations of grid-connected subjects without compensation. Paid power auxiliary service refers to the auxiliary service provided by grid-connected entities in addition to the basic auxiliary service. The demand for paid power service is confirmed and apportioned by the power grid dispatching agency, and compensation can be obtained through fixed methods or market-oriented methods. The fixed methods are carried out according to the principle of "compensation cost, reasonable income", and the market-oriented methods are carried out according to the principle of "formation of price through market competition". The compensation methods and compensation standards are different in different regions and provinces.

  According to the data of the National Energy Administration, in the first half of 2022 and 2023, the national electricity auxiliary service cost was 30.3 billion yuan and 27.8 billion yuan respectively, and the cost accounted for 1.9% of the Internet electricity cost in the first half of this year. Taking the new energy power generation enterprise A in the Northwest region (hereinafter referred to as "Enterprise A") as an example, its auxiliary service sharing cost continued to increase in recent years (Figure 3). About 82 million yuan occurred in the first half of 2023, which is close to the full year of 2022. According to international experience, the cost of electric auxiliary services is generally more than 3% of the total electricity bill of the whole society, and the proportion will continue to rise with the large-scale access to new energy.

Second, there are problems: the operation management foundation is not solid, and the investment return is lower than expected

Solar power forecast, AGC, available electricity assessment account for a large proportion

Public data show that from January to October 2023, the grid-connected management of a scenic field station in a northwestern province scored 220,281 points (Figure 4), of which 91,272 points were scored in the scenic power prediction assessment, accounting for 41%; Wind energy consumption assessment 60,479 points, accounting for 27.4%; AGC assessment 58,803 points, accounting for 26.3%. Taking Enterprise A as the sample (see Figure 5), the assessment of key indicators of grid-connected management from 2018 to 2023 totaled about 84,070 points, of which 45,695 points, accounting for 54%; AGC assessment 23,214 points, accounting for 28%; The electricity consumption assessment scored 7368 points, accounting for 9%, and the three assessment contents accounted for 91% of the total assessment.

From the above overall, individual and historical data analysis, the three major pain points of grid-connected management assessment are solar power prediction, AGC, and available electricity consumption. At present, there are many inaccurate factors in the wind power prediction of new energy enterprises. The main contradictions are the lack of high-quality meteorological sources, the few typical representative points of wind towers at stations, the failure to establish prediction models in different areas, and the large deviation of power prediction and available electricity consumption caused by equipment maintenance and maintenance. Some power generation enterprises have problems such as old AGC system link equipment, slow data transmission, backward control strategy and slow execution rate of old units, which are the root causes restricting the slow response speed of AGC.

The source of network source coordination management is unfamiliar

Some new energy enterprises are not familiar with the management regulations and technical standards related to network source coordination, and do not understand the work requirements and technical indicators. For example, the current grid-connected management requires that power generation enterprises must have the function of primary frequency modulation, which many new energy old stations do not have; In terms of high-voltage and low-voltage crossing and frequency and voltage adaptability, individual new energy enterprises have a series of interlocking failures such as off-grid and outage when the voltage or frequency of the entire power system fluctuates, mainly because the fan converters, photovoltaic inverters, and SVG in the station fail to meet the current national standard requirements for voltage and frequency. Panoramic monitoring, transient modeling, network monitoring and other front-end sensing equipment, the grid requires the construction of grid-connected new energy stations, most of the old stations do not have the above functions, need to be upgraded.

The management of automation equipment is not professiona

  From the data in Figure 4 and Figure 5 above, although the proportion of automation equipment assessment is not large, the operation and assessment of all new energy enterprises should rely on the data transmission of automation professionals. Even if the proportion of single assessment is small, the unprofessional automation management will bring many aspects of assessment to the net-related equipment, and serious problems even involve the disassembly of the station and power generation limitation. At present, most new energy enterprises have a low understanding of the automation device of the terminal, and some even do not know the terminal communication management terminal; For example, for various automated links of the station, many stations think that only one link to maintain communication, the business is not affected, from the perspective of automation professionals, single-link communication is a fault state, once the single link is interrupted, not only can not monitor the dispatch to the station business situation, more importantly, the power grid will not be able to regulate the equipment.

The return on investment of the project is lower than expected

  At present, when the feasibility study report of new energy projects in the industry calculates the power generation benefit, the price of electricity is directly adopted by the approved unit price or benchmark price, without considering the assessment cost and auxiliary service allocation cost in the "two detailed rules", superimposing the factor of long life cycle of wind and photovoltaic power stations, and the unmeasured cost has a greater impact on the calculation of expected income. From January to November 2023, the electricity income of the above-mentioned enterprise A is 1.351 billion yuan, and the assessment cost of the "two detailed rules" is about 130 million yuan, accounting for 9.62% of the total income, which is second only to the depreciation of fixed assets and financial expenses, and has become the main factor for the profit reduction of enterprises. The long-term impact of the "two detailed rules" is not fully considered in the preparation of the feasible electricity price, resulting in a high expectation of internal rate of return on capital, and the original project investment measurement method is tested.

Participation in the auxiliary service market is small

  First of all, the cost compensation mechanism of the auxiliary service market is still gradually improving, the investment of auxiliary service facilities is insufficient, the entire market is mainly dominated by thermal power depth peak regulation, and the cost is mainly borne by new energy enterprises, resulting in more and more heavy burden of new energy management. Secondly, the research on new energy enterprises supporting energy storage to participate in the auxiliary service market through the operation mode of wind, light and storage is not deep enough, the energy storage utilization rate is not high, and new energy enterprises invest in energy storage to increase operating costs. Third, the cooperation mode of joint emerging entities (such as virtual power plants, pumped storage, independent adjustable loads, etc.) to participate in auxiliary services is still in the exploration stage.

Third, countermeasures: top-level design lean management, innovation and participation in auxiliary services

Strengthen the top-level design and pay attention to the assessment of detailed rules

  Enterprises should attach great importance to the assessment of the "two rules" from the top down, and the leading group of "Improving quality and efficiency" is fully responsible for the guidance of the "two rules" at the management level, timely research and analysis of policy changes, judge the trend impact on enterprise efficiency, and formulate coping strategies. The implementation level establishes the "two detailed rules" assessment management leading group of all departments of the production system, formulates the corresponding management system and rewards and punishments, strengthens the control of the standard, implements the responsibilities of personnel at all levels, and strengthens professional management. Internally, fully mobilize all departments and professions to participate in the management of the "two detailed rules", increase publicity and training efforts, and improve the awareness of all staff on cost control of assessment. External, do a good job of communication and coordination with the local power grid dispatching department, grasp the direction of regional rules changes, timely report abnormalities, do a good job of non-assessment declaration, reduce false assessment.

Strengthen professional management to reduce equipment failures

  The first is to strengthen automation operation and maintenance management, equipped with automation professional operation and maintenance personnel or strengthen outsourcing technical services, to enhance the professional ability of automation equipment operation and maintenance. Standardize the configuration of station automation equipment, check and maintain the operation of equipment regularly to avoid data transmission interruption. The key automation equipment of the terminal should be configured redundantly to prevent data interruption caused by single power supply and single channel. The new and old stations should be configured with corresponding automation equipment in strict accordance with the latest specification requirements of the power grid to meet the secondary security requirements. Actively investigate the market, add a grid-connected management and supervision platform, and sense sudden abnormalities of net-related equipment in advance. Secondly, it is necessary to strengthen technical management work, organize operation, maintenance, and equipment manufacturers to regularly convene network-related equipment assessment and analysis meetings every month to avoid repeated assessment caused by last month's problems.

Accurate power prediction for improved operating capability

  For the power prediction of new energy enterprises, the operation and maintenance personnel of the station need to find the unreasonable and inaccurate problems existing in the system in time, and improve the prediction accuracy by selecting high-quality third-party technology manufacturers, optimizing the frequency of the wind power prediction model, increasing the number of meteorological sources, optimizing the extreme weather model and other factors. For the AGC system, the response speed of the system can be improved by real-time tracking, changing the path, upgrading the comprehensive analysis and adjustment ability of the system, and optimizing the control strategy to achieve real-time automatic control of the station. Strengthen the management of operation and maintenance personnel, formulate guidance manuals for the inspection of network-related equipment, check key data such as system reporting rate and accuracy rate according to operation steps every day, and troubleshoot faults in time when anomalies are found.

Fully study and judge the market, scientific preparation can be studied

  When making decisions on new projects, new energy enterprises should fully understand the risk that the project production income does not meet expectations, resulting in failure to pass the post-investment project evaluation. For the "two detailed rules" of profit reduction factors to study and evaluate and respond to measures, the first is to increase the internal rate of return of capital project standards, control cost and other ways to hedge the impact of direct use of benchmark electricity prices; The second is to fully demonstrate the possibility of obtaining part of the market transaction higher than the benchmark price, and increase marketing efforts after the project is put into operation to improve the power price and income of the station. Seek to build an effective asset input-output evaluation index system, prepare a project feasibility study report in line with the current development of the power market, and provide effective support for the development of new energy projects investment decisions.

We will innovate the development model and increase our capacity

  New energy power generation enterprises take the initiative to participate in the research of auxiliary service market regulation mechanism, including transparent auxiliary service demand proposal, auxiliary service pricing formula and important parameter determination method, etc., and collaborate with market players to tackle key issues, jointly establish and improve the auxiliary service market, and plan the future to participate in the market trading strategy of auxiliary service products such as peak regulation. Tap the potential of supporting energy storage, optimize the configuration of energy storage capacity and duration, and maximize the comprehensive income of its own wind storage system. Give play to the role of electricity sales companies, and actively and virtual power plants, industrial and commercial interruptible loads and other end users to jointly innovate and design auxiliary service products. In addition, try to break through the internal jurisdiction and strengthen the external joint, plan the combination of resource advantages adjacent to the geographical location, form water, light, wind, fire, nuclear, storage and other complementary adjustment power supply to achieve "peak reduction and valley filling", constantly achieve internal resource optimization and external resource sharing, establish a number of friendly power supplies, improve the new energy output space and achieve "quality and efficiency".

  The "two detailed rules" assessment system keeps pace with The Times, and the improvement of enterprise management can reduce the grid-connected management assessment (as shown in Figure 6), helping it to "improve quality and efficiency", but the sharing cost of electric auxiliary services has risen, making it "unable to prevent"; Tap the potential of their own supporting energy storage devices, and actively participate in auxiliary service market transactions to obtain compensation; New project investment should fully consider the "two detailed rules" factors, scientific preparation can be studied; Internal and external joint establishment of a number of friendly power supplies, enhance the new energy output space to achieve "quality and efficiency." The purpose of the introduction of the "two detailed rules" is to better support the development of new energy and serve the construction of new power systems, but the soaring cost allocation of electric auxiliary services has reduced the income of new energy projects, resulting in a mismatch between its efficiency and scale growth. It is imperative to establish a more unified, open, and transparent market for power auxiliary services to more equitably channel the systemic costs of the energy transition.

Article source: China Energy storage network

Grid-connected operation management (FIG. 2)

  covers grid-connected subjects, main operation assessment indicators, operation management, information disclosure and supervision management, etc. The main assessment indicators for new energy enterprises include AGC/AVC, wind and solar power forecast, available electricity consumption, primary frequency modulation, automation and other five major items. From the evolution process of the "two rules" clauses over the years, the assessment standards continue to improve. For example, the 2023 version of the "two rules" of the Northwest Energy Supervision Bureau adjusted the assessment rules for the short-term prediction of wind power from the original daily forecast curve to the weighted amount of the daily forecast curve. The availability requirement of the wind-active power control system (AGC) is increased from 99% to 100%, the AGC response time requirement is adjusted from 120 seconds to 60 seconds, and the assessment penalty is determined according to the wind-active power prediction and the accuracy of AGC and deviation from the detailed rules.