China has unveiled an ambitious plan to establish a nationwide smart power grid employing internet technologies such as 5G and artificial intelligence, with the first phase to be completed within two years.
The scheme was outlined in a recent white paper by the State Grid Corporation, China’s largest utility company, which operates roughly 90 per cent of the country’s electricity grids. The state-owned monopoly is also one of the biggest utility companies in the world, making US$9.5 billion in profits last year.
Named the “Ubiquitous Power Internet of Things”, the project promises to create an interconnected digital ecosystem linking the internet with the nation’s electricity supply which would “serve the construction of smart cities”, according to the white paper. China is home to roughly half of the world’s 1,000 pilot smart cities, which use 5G and AI technology to improve urban management.
“The Ubiquitous Power Internet of Things will comprehensively apply modern information technology and advanced communication technologies such as mobile internet and artificial intelligence … to realise the interconnection of all things and human-computer interaction in all aspects of the power grid,” the document said.
The first phase of the project is slated for completion in 2021, with the second phase to be finished in 2024. So far this year, State Grid has outlined 57 construction tasks and 25 demonstration projects to advance the plan.
According to Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis in Sydney, Australia, State Grid’s latest efforts to modernise the electric grid with renewable energy and IoT technology is a continuation and expansion of the company’s existing strategy.
“Smart meters have been around for a decade. A lot of countries including Australia have toyed with them but China State Grid has been very much systematic in their roll-out and investment in them,” he said.
“It’s not like this white paper is in isolation – this is a programme of investment and development that’s been well underway for a decade. China State Grid has consistently been at the forefront of technology in doing so.”
According to a 2016 report by the market intelligence firm Northeast Group, China is predicted to spend US$77.6 billion on smart grid infrastructure over the next decade.
A smart grid system is a digitally automated electricity network that supplies electricity to consumers via two-way communication. They are more reliable and efficient than traditional power grids since they respond faster to fluctuations in electricity supply and demand and can automatically detect and restore power after outages.
In addition, they are more environmentally friendly since they can draw on multiple sources of renewable energy for power. Smart grids can also incorporate IoT technology such as intelligent appliances and smart meters.
“The grid has traditionally been a one-way directional flow of power – power goes from the big centralised power plants through the grid to the customer,” explained Buckley.
But with the new two-way advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) smart meters that State Grid plans to install, customers who produce surplus energy through sources like solar panels, for example, can sell it back to the grid.
“[It] allows that two-way monitoring and metering of power flows, so the consumer is rewarded when they are a producer and charged when they are a consumer,” he said.
According to the white paper, State Grid has been aggressive in incorporating a larger share of electricity from renewable energy sources into the grid.
From January to August 2019, the amount of “clean” electricity generated and fed into the grid grew 15.9 per cent year-on-year, to 394.4 billion kilowatt-hours.
“There are no grids in the world outside of China that have seen that level of variable renewable energies being incorporated into the grid at this speed,” Buckley said.
State Grid recently put the “Ubiquitous Power Internet of Things” into practice at the newly opened Beijing Daxing International Airport, which now uses an “100 per cent green power supply”, according to a company release.
The company installed an “International Airport Smart Energy Service System” comprehensive data platform which integrates power grid, airport and customer information. The release said that the system is capable of reacting to airport users’ demand for electricity.
State Grid has already used mobile Internet and AI in smart power grids in some parts of China including the northern industrial port city of Tianjin, according to Xinhua. Tianjin is also home to China’s first ultra-high voltage power grid, which uses wind, solar and geothermal energy.
The project also promises to improve energy efficiency by integrating and using different types of clean energy sources, State Grid official Wang Feng was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
In recent years, State Grid has advocated for a number of ultra-high voltage technology projects to boost the national energy infrastructure, partly in a bid to ease China’s reliance on fossil fuel sources responsible for greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. Reducing air pollution has been a key environmental objective of the Chinese government.
“The ultra-high voltage grid is the key to building a global energy Internet,” Liu Zhenya, a former head of State Grid, said at a lecture in Moscow last year, according to Xinhua.
The “global energy internet” is essentially a “smart grid connected to an UHV grid that could potentially deliver clean energy worldwide,” according to a 2018 report by the London-based LEK Consulting.
Sourced from South China Morning Post - written by Laurie Chen