New Year Speech to Ring in 2022 by Xin Baoan, President of CEC

Forge Ahead and Take on the Role - Starting a New Era of High-Quality Development in the Power Industry 

‘By the vest and mighty vernal river we lingered for a while, then we stepped up the peaks for a broader view. ’On the occasion of resigning from the old and welcoming the new, on behalf of China Electricity Council (CEC), I would like to express our heartfelt appreciation and best wishes to the majority of member units, colleagues and retired comrades in the power industry, to the officials and management at all levels, friends, partners and customers who have long cared about and supported the development of China's power industry!

2021 would be a landmark year in the history of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government. The Communist Party solemnly celebrated the centenary of the founding of the party. The Chinese government officially announced the completion of a moderately prosperous society in all respects and achieved the first centenary goal. At the same time, it has begun to move towards the second centenary goal.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, coordinated the domestic and international political situation, calmly responded to the changes and the epidemic unseen in a century, coordinated epidemic prevention and control and the economic and social development, and worked hard to accelerate various national undertakings, achieving a good start to the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.

This year, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, the power industry followed the country’s new development concept, fully served the new development pattern and the implementation of the country’s major strategies and coordinated the power supply and the clean and low-carbon transformation of energy. Also, CEC actively constructed the New Type Power System, accelerated the achievement of the "Dual Carbon" goal, and finally handed over a brilliant result in 2021.

Safeguard Energy Security and Ensure the Reliable Power Supply

In 2021, the country's power demand increased rapidly. From January to November, the electricity consumption of the whole society reached 7,497.2 TWh, an increase of 11.4% year-on-year. The power supply and demand were in tight balance for a long period.

Faced to the natural disasters such as typhoons and heavy rains, especially the floods in Zhengzhou, the power companies did their best to resist the mentioned disasters for guaranteeing the production in various industries and quickly restored the damaged power grid facilities to maintain the warmth and light of each family.

Coped with the tight power supply caused by various factors including the increase in power demand, tight fuel supply, high coal prices, instability of clean energy power generation and others, the entire power industry firmly implemented the national control measures: the power generation and heating companies made all-out efforts to increase the supply, and the grid companies optimized the power dispatching and operating, strengthened the mutual aid between networks, and cooperated with the government to do a good job of demand-side management, ensured the people's livelihood power consumption and restored the power supply and consumption situation to normal in a short time.

Focus on the "Dual Carbon" Goal and Accelerate the Construction of the New Type Power System

The country's power supply mix was cleaner and more diversified, and clean energy developed rapidly. By the end of November, 2021, the installed capacity of non-fossil energy power generation in China reached 1070GW, accounting for 46.1% of the total installed capacity. 

The utilization rates of wind power, photovoltaic and hydropower reached 96.9%, 97.9% and 97.8% respectively. The main grid and distribution network of the power grid had been comprehensively strengthened, pumped storage developed again rapidly, clean energy storage increased rapidly, and the capacity of large-scale resource allocation and flexible regulation of the power system continued to increase. 

The State Grid Corporation of China built the world's largest cloud platform to provide one-stop full process online services for clean energy, with a total of 2.45 million wind and solar power stations connected. Emerging industries such as comprehensive energy services, intelligent power consumption, energy big data and electric vehicle services had been developed rapidly, and the electrification level of terminal energy consumption was continuously improved.

Innovative Driven-Development and Major Projects Completion

Hualong One, a domestically designed third-generation nuclear reactor, began generating electricity, paving the way for commercial operation. 

The Baihetan Hydropower Station, the first hydropower station in the world with single unit capacity of 1 GW, was put into operation. 

Operated by Huaneng Group Co Ltd, the world's first industrial-scale demonstration plant of a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor with pebble-bed module, the No 1 reactor of the Shidaowan nuclear power plant, located in Shandong province was connected to the grid and put into operation. 

A number of world leading UHV projects such as Yazhong-Jiangxi, Northern Shaanxi-Hubei and Nanchang-Changsha were completed and put into operation.

The world's largest clean energy distributed condenser group was successfully connected to the grid in Qinghai. 

The power industry accelerated the digital transformation and promoted the integration between the advanced energy and digital technologies. The construction of energy Internet was making progress.

In 2021, 77 national standards and 429 industrial standards were issued in the power industry.

‘Power First’for China's High-Quality Economic and Social Development

In 2021, the power industry expanded the investment and improved its service quality, which made important contributions to the country’s economic stability. 

From January to November in 2021, the power generation projects of major power generation companies across the country completed an investment of 430.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.6%. The national power grid project completed an investment of 410.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.1%. The power industry strongly accelerated the development of upstream and downstream industries and drove the country's economic recovery, industrial transformation and upgrading.

In response to the country’s strategies such as regional development, new-type urbanization and rural revitalization, the power industry strengthened power construction to increase the“access to power” thus to improve the business environment, which accelerated the utilization of resource advantages and coordinated development.

The power industry’s involvement in the Belt and Road Initiative achieved fruitful results: the first large-scale power transmission project in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the Murrah DC Project, had officially delivered power. Hualong One, the first overseas reactor of Pakistan's Karachi Nuclear Power Plant, was completed and put into operation.

The vigorous development of the power industry was benefited from the scientific guidance of Xi Jinping’s thoughts on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, the care and support of government departments at all levels and all sectors of society, and the unremitting struggle and hard work of all practitioners.

As a platform, bridge and link for serving the power industry, CEC has always enriched the service content of its members, innovated the management and operation mechanism of the association, and has done a lot of work in policy researches, technical exchanges, standard formulation and professional training, etc., to promote the high-quality development of the power industry.

‘A hundred years of glory illuminates the future, and the great journey begins with a single step.’ 2022 is the year of the Beijing Winter Olympics and the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. It is also the 140th anniversary of China's electricity supply. It is of special significance for the power industry to make its best. 

With the deepening of the country's energy transition, the continuous acceleration of the "Dual Carbon" process, and the continuous improvement of the level of electrification, the supporting and driving role of electricity for economic and social development will become more prominent. The power industry is facing the unprecedented challenges, as well as the unprecedented opportunities for development.

Under the leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, China Electricity Council will closely focus on the goal of ensuring power supply and serving the "dual carbon", accelerate setting up an industry association featured with“Three Orientations and Four Excellencies”, and actively provide CEC members and the power industry high quality services.

We sincerely hope that all members and all electric power colleagues can work together to make new achievements in the high-quality development of the power industry and the transformation of clean and low-carbon energy!