Promote the energy revolution | Achieve clean development

Figure 1 The world's highest altitude, the most complex natural power transmission and transformation project - the Tibet-China networking project is about to be put into operation.

Figure 2. On April 6, the gas storage operation of Xiangguosi Gas Storage Company of PetroChina Southwest Oil and Gas Field Company began.

Figure 3 A view of the Three Gorges Dam. Photo by Wang Yuchen

In the past 40 years of reform and opening up, how does energy support China's economic development? What are the problems in the development of the industry? Where is the road to energy development in China in the future? On the above issues, the Economic Daily reporter interviewed the Energy Development and Development Strategy of the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission. Xiao Xin, deputy director of the research center.

Reporter: In the past 40 years of reform and opening up, China's safe and stable energy supply and rapid growth in energy consumption have strongly supported the rapid growth of the national economy. How to look at the correlation between energy consumption and China's economic growth?

Xiao Xinjian: The elasticity coefficient of energy consumption reflects the dependence of economic growth on energy consumption. From reform and opening up to the new century, China's primary energy consumption and economic growth are basically synchronized, and the energy consumption elasticity coefficient fluctuates between 0.4 and 0.6.

Since 2000, China's energy consumption has entered a stage of rapid growth, and primary energy consumption has shown rapid growth. In particular, in 2003, the elasticity coefficient of energy consumption in 2004 exceeded 1.5, indicating that the supporting role of energy consumption in economic growth during this period was strengthened.

Since the '11th Five-Year Plan, China has increased its energy conservation and emission reduction efforts, and the energy consumption elasticity coefficient has gradually decreased. During the '11th Five-Year' period, China's energy consumption elasticity coefficient averaged 0.59 per year, and the '12th Five-Year' period was 0.45. The 13th Five-Year Plan was only 0.3 in the first two years. The primary energy consumption has entered a low-growth stage and gradually deviated from the economic growth. The Chinese economy has also begun to move toward a high-quality development stage. During this period, China’s electricity consumption and economic growth The correlation is very strong, generally between 0.8 and 1.0, indicating that power consumption plays a supporting role in China's economic growth. Compared with the support of primary energy consumption, the dependence of economic growth on electricity is significantly enhanced.

Reporter: What are the main problems in the development of China's energy industry? How should we respond?

Xiao Xinjian: Safeguarding energy supply, eliminating environmental pollution caused by energy development and utilization, and addressing global climate change issues are the three core issues of China's energy development. First, the issue of security development. As energy demand continues to increase, in addition to In addition to strengthening domestic supply security, increasing the supply of overseas energy resources has become an inevitable choice. How to ensure the safety of energy imports is a long-term challenge.

The second is the issue of clean development. For a long time, China has relied heavily on the extensive and inefficient development of coal, which not only caused a lot of waste of resources, but also caused serious environmental pollution. How to achieve clean energy development is the bottleneck of ecological civilization construction in the current and future period.

The third is low-carbon development. In 2014, global carbon dioxide emissions were 35.5 billion tons, of which China reached 9.76 billion tons, accounting for more than a quarter of the world's total. Coal consumption contributed major carbon dioxide emissions.

To solve these three major problems, the state needs to take corresponding strategic measures and measures in the process of promoting the energy revolution, in response to the urgency of the problem. In the next 10 years, especially during the '13th Five-Year' and '14th Five-Year' period, we must comprehensively manage the environment. Pollution, promote the development of clean.

Reporter: The new round of energy revolution is on the rise in the world. What is the direction of China's energy development in the future?

Xiao Xinjian: In the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration's "Revolutionary Strategy for Energy Production and Consumption (2016~2030)", it is clearly proposed that "advance research individualization, generalization, and independent self-energy system related technologies" ' This is the first time in the official document to propose the 'self-energy system'.

The so-called self-energy system is through the application of various advanced technologies, so that each monomer in the future is both an energy producer and an energy consumer; energy transmission is as convenient, economical and applicable as information transmission.

One scenario that can be envisioned for future energy applications: When people are outdoors, his clothes, hats and even body-applied sunscreens can automatically absorb the heat generated by the movement, as well as the light, the energy blown by the breeze, etc., and automatically collect and store These energy sources can be used to charge smart devices (such as mobile phones, human-machine-assisted devices), to heat treatment of joints, and to trade with the outside world.

In the self-energy system, renewable energy will become the broadest way of development and utilization, and green low-carbon sustainable will become the direction of future energy development.